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Make your white elephant gift exchange more memorable by doing a gift auction! Perfect for all ages, plus the printable cash makes it a super easy Christmas party game.
HOW TO HOST A WHITE ELEPHANT GIFT AUCTION
Alright so you’re looking for a Christmas party game that’s simple, quick to throw together, and fun for all ages? This game is a winner. No pun intended. 🙂
Back in our pre-parenthood days, we had the best group of friends that we would get together once a month for a fun party or outing. Our good friends the Adams hosted a Christmas party and introduced us to the most fun game…
A Christmas Party Gift Auction!
Everyone was asked to bring one good gift (with a dollar limit) and one tacky/white elephant gift wrapped. (See our alterations on this below!)
We were then given Christmas Cash to use to buy our gifts! One of our friends was the “auctioneer” and started auctioning off each gift. Whoever bid the highest won that gift.
RELATED: 16 WHITE ELEPHANT GIFTS UNDER $20 THAT EVERYONE WANTS!
THE BEST PART ABOUT THIS GAME
Since each gift was wrapped, we didn’t know what we were going to get! I paid big money for a roll of toilet paper, while others ended up with gift cards and other awesome prizes.
THE MOST FUN CHRISTMAS PARTY GAME!
Since that first gift auction many years ago, my husband and I have continued this game with both sides of the family throughout the years.
We recently held a “Christmas Kick-off Party” over Thanksgiving Break and played this game. And our families keep asking for it year after year.
A PERFECT GAME FOR:
- Family parties
- Ugly sweater parties
- Christmas Cookie Exchange
- “Sockin” Around the Christmas Tree – Tacky Holiday Sock Party
This game plus our Christmas Movie Trivia Game are our favorite go-to Christmas party games! GET THEM IN OUR CHRISTMAS GAME BUNDLE HERE!
WHY YOU WILL LOVE THIS GAME:
- All ages can play!
- It’s simple to play, with minimal effort to prepare
- Playing will create a friendly sense of competition
- Laughter is inevitable
- It’s a perfect last-minute game
If you’re looking for a fun, last-minute Christmas Party Game idea, do this!
RELATED: 16 WHITE ELEPHANT GIFTS UNDER $20 THAT EVERYONE WANTS!
- Scissors
- Gift bags and wrapping paper- no perfect wrapping required!
- A fun group of party guests
>> SAVE TIME! GET THE CHRISTMAS & HOLIDAY CASH READY TO PRINT HERE! <<
HOW TO DO A CHRISTMAS PARTY GIFT AUCTION:
Tip: Give a dollar amount limit so that all gifts will be fairly equal.
6. For extra fun, the hosts should put together one “Grand Prize” for the end. This grand prize can be awesome or not… the person with the most cash at the end automatically wins the Grand Prize.
RELATED: 16 WHITE ELEPHANT GIFTS UNDER $20 THAT EVERYONE WANTS!
I’ve designed 2 versions of Cash: Christmas Cash or Holiday Cash, depending on what you prefer! Use it for this gift auction party or job charts, good behavior rewards, or Christmas stores in your classroom.
For just a few dollars, you’re on your way to a fun and simple Christmas party game!
DOWNLOAD THE GIFT AUCTION CASH FROM OUR SHOP HERE
HILARIOUS GIFT AUCTION GIFT IDEAS?
The whole fun of a white elephant gift auction is that some gifts will be awesome and some will be terrible! Here’s a few of the most popular gifts we’ve seen throughout the years:
- Gift cards (with only a few cents on them!)
- Cash
- Toilet paper
- Extra “Christmas Cash”
- Christmas food
- Coloring books, stickers, play dough for kids
- Christmas CD
- Dollar store items
- Bar of soap
- Can of food
- Christmas movie
OK, SO TO RECAP:
To do a gift auction, print off the Christmas/Holiday Cash and separate into piles for each person. Have a your party guests bring a few wrapped gifts. And then auction off the gifts!
OTHER SUPER FUN CHRISTMAS PARTY GAMES:
RELATED: 16 WHITE ELEPHANT GIFTS UNDER $20 THAT EVERYONE WANTS!
Pin this before you forget!
28 comments
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we are doing this for Christmas! looks so fun
Is each person only allowed to win one time or can they get multiple gifts?
You can win as many gifts as you have cash for!
Is there a limi,t how many gifts a person can win, and won’t that leave people with no gift at All?
we haven’t set a limit– so if you have cash left, you can buy the gift. you might spend all your money for one gift (if the bid gets that high) or you might get mulitple gifts if you don’t have to spend very much on them.
A great way to change up the gift exchange, with minimal expense. I think I’ll buy the gifts and wrap them in decorated snowman and reindeer lunch bags.
oh, that’s such a great idea!
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If everyone is giving the same amount of money how can you outbid someone? Say both of you are willing to spend the Mac that was given?
Good question! I suppose that could happen! But, usually with all the gifts there are, it’s unlikely that everyone will have the same amount leftover. If you wanted to avoid this, you could play a game beforehand to earn different amounts… it always works out.
This was the perfect game! We have such a wide variety of ages, that it was a challenge to find something everyone could enjoy. This was ideal because it allowed everyone to participate . We’d outgrown our traditional “right-left pass the present and swap” white elephant game and we’ve struggled to find a replacement. But everyone really loved this twist! The chance of getting a decent gift kept the interest high and the fact that you could bid as long as you have Christmas Cash kept people engaged the whole time instead of checking out as soon as they had a gift. Thanks so much for sharing!!
This makes me smile. I’m so glad your family loved this gift auction!
This sounds FUN! I’m a detail person…so I have questions. Giving a grand prize to whoever has the most $$$ at the end? Isn’t that a reward for whoever didn’t participate much? I want to encourage guests to get in on the action. And are we giving our money to whoever brought the gift or to a “cashier” or a central pot to throw it in? Maybe extra prizes should be given for the best gift (group vote) or the most absurd gift. That would encourage people to be creative.
Any other suggestions for money, other than printing all of that out? I may have 25 people at our party and that is a lot of wasted paper and ink…and time – printing, cutting, separating. Can’t wait for our group to do this fun game.
The money goes to the auctioneer. You could definitely do extra prizes for most creative, etc. Or those people could get extra cash. We’ve always done it with money. I printed a set a few years ago and I reuse it every year.
Thanks for your reply and help. Looking forward to playing this. If anyone else has suggestions for my questions above, please feel free to post them. Especially for an option of not doing so much printing of money for a large group.
We have done this game in the past for a business Christmas party, and we make it a “change” auction using only the loose change people have along. They dont know ahead of time that we are using change, so they can’t plan to bring more along, and we dont allow them to go up to the bar or waitress to get more. We are starting out this year playing the game left, center, right and playing with coins instead of chips, and they will be able to use the coins they win, in addition to their loose change. We then auction the gifts for small amounts like .50 or $1.00. We also use both gag and nice gifts. Hope that helps for another suggestion other than paper money!
What a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing!!
Would it work to throw in a twist to include swapping (like dirty Santa)? You can bid with your available Cash and either give it to the Auctioneer for an unopened gift or to a player who has already opened one you want. Then that player would use the additional cash to bid some more. Downsides?
of course you could! really, the sky is the limit with this fun game!
Monopoly money?
Christmas cash is more festive, but you could definitely use that!
Suggestions on how to make it so each participant ends up with a ‘good prize’?
If you are worried about everyone getting a good prize, then I would limit the $ amount each gift is worth. Usually we do this with $10 or less gifts so that no one is out a lot. Or just have everyone bring dollar gifts or funny gifts. That’s the fun is not knowing what you’ll get!
Any suggestions for doing this during a family party with both kids and adults? Trying to figure out a way that each family doesn’t have to bring a gift for each person that will be good for both adults and kids…
We usually do just cheap dollar gifts when kids and adults are involved. We do a seperate auction for kids sometimes too!
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