White Elephant Generator

How to run a white elephant gift swap

1. Agree a price limit and tell everyone to bring one wrapped gift. Wrapping matters: a box that hides its shape makes the steals more fun.
2. Type the players’ names above, or only the number of players if you would rather draw numbers from a hat. The order is shuffled as you type.
3. Pick the rules: how often a gift can be stolen in one turn, when a gift freezes, whether you may steal back straight away, and whether player #1 gets a final swap. The rules card updates as you choose.
4. Print the PDF at 100% (“Actual size”). Cut the number slips on the dashed lines, fold them and put them in a bowl, or skip the slips and follow the printed order sheet. Lay the rules card on the gift table.
5. Press Start the game on a phone, laptop or TV. It shows “Now: Jonas, #4” in large type with Next and Back, so the room can see whose turn it is without anyone shouting.

How to play the white elephant dice game

The dice game swaps the open-or-steal turns for a die. Nobody has to decide whom to rob, which makes it quicker and kinder for big office parties and mixed-age families. Choose Dice game in the form above, check the six faces, print the rules sheet, and press Roll the die on a phone.

1. Sit in a circle with the wrapped gifts in a pile in the middle. Left and right only make sense in a circle, so a row of chairs works badly.
2. Round 1. In turn order, each player rolls once and does what the number says. With the usual table a 1 means take a wrapped gift from the pile and open it, so the pile shrinks only on 1s; on any other number the player swaps, steals or passes, and the die moves on. Round 1 ends when the pile is empty.
3. Round 2. Set the timer (3 minutes is the usual length) and pass the die round the circle as fast as you can. Every roll is acted on at once: swap left, swap right, steal, pass everything one place. When the timer ends, everyone keeps the gift they are holding.

Round 1 is slow on purpose. With 12 players and only one face that opens a gift, about one roll in six opens something, so Round 1 takes around 70 rolls, roughly 15 to 20 minutes. If that is too long for your group, set two faces to “Open a wrapped gift” and it halves.

Questions

What does each number mean in the white elephant dice game?

There is no single official table, which is why the faces are editable here. The table most groups use is: 1 open a wrapped gift (or pass if none are left), 2 swap with the person on your left, 3 swap with the person on your right, 4 steal any opened gift, 5 everyone passes their gift one place left, 6 roll again. Each face can be changed to one of ten actions, such as “swap with anyone you choose” or “nothing happens”, and the printed sheet and the die on the phone both follow your table.

How long does round 2 last?

Most groups play a 3 minute round 2. Pick 1 to 10 minutes: 2 minutes keeps a party of 8 lively; with 30 people, 5 to 7 minutes gives the die time to travel round the circle a few times. The phone shows a large countdown with Start and Pause, and plays a short tone at the end only if you tick the sound box.

How many dice do you need?

One die is enough for up to about 20 players. For larger groups, use two dice that start on opposite sides of the circle, so nobody waits long for a turn. If you have no dice, the Roll view is a fair die: it draws from your browser’s cryptographic random generator and throws away the 4 byte values (252 to 255) that would favour the low numbers, so each face has exactly a 1 in 6 chance.

Can a large group play the dice game?

Yes, and it scales better than the classic game, because a dice turn is one roll rather than a chain of steals. For 30 or more players, make two circles with their own pile, or use two dice and set two faces to “open” so Round 1 does not drag. Tick “each number counts only once per turn” if repeated 6s keep one person rolling.

Is there a printable white elephant dice game PDF?

Yes. The Dice rules PDF button makes a one-page sheet on A4 or US Letter (chosen from your browser’s language) with the six die faces drawn as pips and their actions in large type, the two-round rules and a short set-up, followed by the same numbered slips the classic game uses for the turn order. The PNG is the rules sheet alone at 300 dpi for sharing in a group chat. Tick black and white to print without the cream and red ink.

What is the difference between white elephant, dirty Santa and Yankee swap?

Nothing in the game itself. All three names describe the same gift-stealing exchange: everyone brings one wrapped gift, players go in a random order, and each turn you open a gift or steal one that is already open. Which name you grew up with mostly depends on where you live and who taught you; “Yankee swap” is heard most in New England, “Dirty Santa” more in the American South, and “white elephant” is the widest-used term. The house rules vary far more than the name: how many steals per turn, when a gift freezes, and whether anyone gets a final swap. That is why the Call it switch only changes the title on the card, the slips and the order sheet, and leaves the rules to you.

What are simple rules for kids or first-timers?

Tap Simple: one steal per gift per turn, a gift freezes on its 3rd steal, and player #1 gets a final swap because they had nothing to steal from. That fits on one card and nobody has to remember more than “open or steal”. For young children, set steals to 0 · none instead: everyone opens a gift and keeps it, which avoids tears over a stolen toy. Read the card aloud once before turn #1; questions mid-game are what make a swap drag.

What rules work for an office gift exchange?

Tap Office: no immediate steal-back, gifts freeze after 2 steals, and no final swap. Fewer steals keeps a lunch-hour game to about 30 to 40 minutes for 15 people, the no-steal-back rule stops two colleagues trading the same gift back and forth, and dropping the final swap means the game ends cleanly when the last gift is opened. A price limit printed on the card (say $25) does more than any rule to keep gifts fair.

How do you play with a large group of 20 or more?

Tap Large group 20+: gifts freeze after 2 steals, and the card gets one extra line, a time limit of 60 seconds per turn, after which the player opens a wrapped gift. At a minute or two a turn, 30 people already take an hour; the freeze and the clock stop one popular gift from eating 10 minutes. Over 40 people, consider two separate games, each with its own pile. Typing just a number such as 36 gives slips numbered 1 to 36, 24 to a page.

What are good white elephant twists?

Open Twist cards (or tap With a twist) and tick any of the six: swap with someone wearing red, pass the parcel to the left until the music stops, everyone passes right, the next birthday swaps out of turn, youngest and oldest trade, and a swap across the room. Ticked cards print on their own page of the PDF to cut out; the host shuffles them face down and draws one after every 5th turn. The rules card gains one line explaining that, and a twist never moves a frozen gift. Unticked twists do not print at all.

How does white elephant work?

Everyone brings one wrapped gift and puts it on a pile. Players take turns in a random order. On your turn you either open a wrapped gift from the pile or steal a gift someone has already opened. If your gift is stolen, you pick again: open a new one or steal a different one. That chain of steals happens inside the same turn, and the turn ends when somebody opens a wrapped gift. When the last wrapped gift is opened the game is over, apart from an optional final swap. Each turn takes a minute or two, longer when a popular gift keeps changing hands, so plan on most of an hour for 20 people.

How does a white elephant number generator help?

The order is the only thing that has to be random, and it has to look fair. This page shuffles the names with a Fisher-Yates shuffle driven by crypto.getRandomValues, so each of the possible orders is equally likely; for 8 people that is 40,320 orders. If you type only a number, say 12, you get slips numbered 1 to 12 for a hat, and the room view calls #1, #2, #3 in order.

How do the steal rules work?

Steals per gift, per turn limits how many times one gift can change hands during a single turn; “1” is the common house rule and stops two people passing the same gift back and forth. Freeze after counts steals over the whole game: with “3 steals” the third person to steal a gift keeps it for good. No immediate steal-back means that if Ana takes your candle, you cannot take it straight back from her in the same turn, though you could on a later turn if it has not frozen. Choose 0 for a gentle no-stealing swap where everyone keeps what they open, which suits young children.

Why does player #1 get a final swap?

The first player opens a gift with nothing to steal, while the last player can choose from every opened gift. The usual fix is a final swap: when the last gift is opened, player #1 may trade their gift for any gift that is not frozen. Some groups give the last swap to the last player instead; both options are in the picker.

What if we have an odd number of players?

Nothing changes. Unlike games played in pairs, white elephant needs one gift per player, so 7, 13 or 31 people all work. If someone turns up without a gift, either keep a spare wrapped gift in reserve or let them sit out and watch. If the number of gifts and players do not match, the game ends when the pile is empty, so make sure there are exactly as many gifts as people.

White elephant vs Secret Santa: what is the difference?

In Secret Santa everyone is assigned one person to buy for in advance, and the gifts are personal. In white elephant nobody is assigned anyone: the gifts are anonymous, usually funny or useful rather than personal, and the fun is in the stealing. If you want the assigned version, use the Secret Santa generator, which draws names and sends each person a private link.

Which names print, and how big are the slips?

The slips are 24 to a page, about 48 × 45 mm on A4 and 50 × 42 mm on US Letter, with every line at least 8 mm inside the paper edge, beyond the 3 to 5 mm most home printers cannot reach. The PDF uses the standard Helvetica and Times fonts, which cover English and Western European letters such as é, ø, ß and ñ; letters outside that set are simplified (Łucja prints as Lucja) and other scripts print as question marks, so write those names on by hand.