.jpg)
3 hours ago
3
White elephant parties present a unique challenge: Can you find a cool or funny white elephant gift within a set budget that a group of people—who are potentially strangers—will battle each other to take home?
The true thrill of the game comes from finding something great in a pile of who-knows-what. Some folks bring joke gifts, some bring booze to be safe, and some gifts will feel like garbage to you but gems to others. Some of my favorite white elephant gifts include a coffee-pot-shaped mug, a fun Lego set, and sushi-shaped magnets.
Here's every white elephant gift I recommend bringing, ranging from quirky to cool. There's something in this guide for every potential price cap.
Looking for more gift ideas? Don't miss our other awesome gift guides, including the Best Gifts for Book Lovers, Best Gifts for Moms, Best Gifts for Men, Best Gifts for Bird Lovers, Best Viral Gifts, and the Best Advent Calendars.
Updated December 2025: We’ve added gifts from Tippy Type and PopSockets. We’ve also removed gifts that are out of stock.
An Actually Fun Mug
Everyone hydrates, so a drinking vessel is a safe gift all around. And most people drink some kind of caffeinated drink, whether it's coffee or tea or perhaps an energy drink. This fun mug looks like a miniature coffee pot and can handle hot drinks. It even comes with a plastic lid so you can take it on the go. I like how comfortable the handle is to hold, and it's just so funny to look at while still doing a great job holding my morning tea.
Cute Glassware
Joeyan
Iridescent Drinking Glasses
One of the white elephant gifts I fought for last holiday season was this set of iridescent glasses. It's a pretty little set with a vintage vibe to it that works great for cocktails or even just a fun little glass of water. I was also excited that it came with a bottle of lychee vodka, and I'd definitely recommend including a bottle of something fun that makes for a fight-worthy set (and to help you hit the price minimum, if it's higher than $20).
A Case for Kindle Lovers
PopSockets
PopCase Kindle and PopGrip
If you know your group has a lot of Kindle users in it, then the adorable PopSockets collection of Kindle cases and matching grips is an easy gift to give. I love using mine on both the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Colorsoft, and the PopSockets cases turn the device into a MagSafe device that lets you pop just about any PopSockets grip you want onto the back. It does turn the Kindle on and off when you put the grip on or take it off, but if you (or your gift recipient) usually keep the set together, you won't notice this hiccup. I love the “Curled Up With a Good Book” set that features a dragon sitting on its treasure trove of books, but there's a whole collection to explore. If your group is more of a Kobo club, I also really love Kobo's SleepCover cases that can prop the e-reader up thanks to the foldable portion of the cover.
Chic Legos
-Offwhite-Background-SOURCE-Lego.jpg)
Lego
Icons Dried Flower Centerpiece (Botanical Collection)
Legos are fun for all ages, and Lego has a ton of cool sets we’d all be proud to display around our homes. Architectural sets! Floral sets! Massive Star Wars sets! Most of these, of course, won’t fit into the white elephant budget. But one set gets pretty close: the Dried Flower Centerpiece Set. It’s usually around $40, which might not work for some lower-entry white elephants, but is a perfect choice for the $40 to $50 ones. It’s a fun set that someone can build alone or in a duo—I built mine with my husband for Valentine’s Day a couple years ago, and now it’s a permanent fixture on our bookshelves. It even survived a move!
A Keyboard for Acrylic Nail Lovers
It's actually a keyboard cover, but you get my drift. The Tippy Type raises the letters on a flat laptop keyboard up into smaller, more pressable keys that work great if you have a manicure with long nails. I like it a lot with my Macbook's attached keyboard, though it isn't a fit on my mechanical stand-alone keyboard. It's a great gift on its own if you know a lot of your fellow party attendees type for work and also love to get their nails done, and you can also throw in a set of nails like these chromatic ones from Glamnetic ($18) to make it a little set. The Tippy Type has versions for both Apple and PC computers, so maybe buy the one that your group is more likely to have, and have a gift receipt handy if they need to exchange it.
Paint by Numbers
Galison
Liberty Paint by Number Kit Thorpe
I'm over gifting puzzles, and instead I'm gifting stylish paint-by-number kits this year. I've started on this pretty one from Galison—I'm two hours in and have likely two more hours to go, which surprised me. It comes with 12 paint colors and three brushes, and while I'd maybe include a few more brushes or some other painting accessory if the spending threshold is above $30, it makes for a great gift for your hobby-loving friend group.
Sleep Goodies
We've got a whole guide of gifts for sleep, but a sleepytime combo was my proudest gift this holiday season. I combined a weighted eye mask with a satin pillowcase for my mom friends' white elephant party, and it was a gift that was stolen until the end. This NodPod weighted eye mask is a popular and fairly affordable option, and might already hit the price window you want on its own. If you're looking for a gift more in the $50 range, add on a pillowcase like this one from Kitsch ($19). It's a great combo for sleep that your friends will be fighting for, especially if they're sleep-deprived parents.
Tasty-Looking Magnets
Hey Foly
Sushi Fridge Magnets
Jazz up someone’s fridge with adorable sushi magnets. They almost look a little too real—the salmon nigiri looks ready to eat—but are still fun to look at on a fridge. While the magnets on the plastic rolls are small, they’re still plenty strong enough to hold up papers and children’s artwork on someone’s fridge without slipping or falling. I’m craving ikura just looking at them, and the foodies at your white elephant can battle it out for who gets to take these home and deal with the same cravings. Plus, every single visitor I have comments on how cute these magnets are. After a year of rocking these on my fridge, they're all holding up strong.
Tasty Tins
I love a good tinned fish, and it makes for an easy white elephant gift, too. We've tried a lot of fun sets we'd happily recommend, from the Mussels Trio ($27) from Patagonia Provisions and the Smoky Trio Set ($33) from Fishwife. If you want something a little more fun but still comes in a tin, I really like the fun hair clips ($26) from Fishwife and Chunks, which look like cute little fishies. Right now the hair clips are sold out, but you can sign up to get notified so that you can hopefully score these ahead of your white elephant party. Plus, while these sets are delicious, you can also head to the grocery store at the last minute for a similar idea.
A Punchable Key
Nummove
Big Enter Supersized Key
I’ll tell you right now: The Big Enter Supersized Key enter key is a little too much fun to have on my desk, and a great thing to bring for a white elephant with your coworkers, fellow work-from-home folks, or friends who are allowed to really decorate their cubicle. The punchable enter key’s function is simple: You punch it to hit enter. It connects to a computer via a USB cord, and is nice and responsive so you don’t have to punch it super hard. It’s a fun addition to lively Slack chats, or a secret way to be passive-aggressive without anyone knowing. Unless the winner of this supersized key has a cubicle partner. But that’s their problem—if they can manage to win in the first place during the game.
Adorable Sauce Dishes
Musubi Kiln
Coneco Cat Sauce Plate Set
A good white elephant gift is one anyone can use, and these adorable sauce dishes are begging to be used anywhere in your home. Obviously, you can use them for sauces like soy sauce, but they're also large and flat enough to use as jewelry catchers or even a small set of keys. I've got one at my desk holding a couple hair clips and a hair tie for quick sprucing before a meeting, and the rest are downstairs in my kitchen waiting for sushi night. Plus, how cute are the different cats on each plate?
Game-Night Candles
Being a nerd isn’t as lame as it used to be, nor does it seem so weird to play Dungeons & Dragons like it used to, either. If you’ve got a few dungeon divers in your white elephant group (or maybe it’s a white elephant with your D&D party!), these soy-wax candles from GMDice are a must. There are a ton of fun scent options, all themed around D&D spells, classes, and places you might go during an adventure.
My favorite scents I’ve tried are Hunter’s Mark ($33, 20-ounce jar) which smells like a fresh forest; Dwarven Tavern ($16, 8-ounce tin), which smells like warm honey mead; and Chainmail Bikini ($7, 2-ounce tin), which smells like a tiki cocktail, and there’s a ton more worth exploring and shopping. The candles come in 2-ounce, 8-ounce, 16-ounce, and 20-ounce sizes, plus wax melts. Personally, I’d grab two of the 8-ounce options for a white elephant gift, depending on the price limit, or a handful of 2-ounce candles in a variety of fun-sounding scents. Or maybe one candle and a new set of dice (you can never have enough, after all).
A Great Group Game
Photograph: Chronicle Books
Chronicle Books
Listography: The Game
Finding a good group game is hard, especially one that can accommodate both small and large groups. The best one I’ve tried is Listography, which is designed for three to six players, but I’ve seen it successfully accommodate up to 10 people. To play, one person will pull a card with a prompt—things like “states that border Canada”—and everyone needs to make a list of answers. How many things you write down and how obscure you want to get varies, since there are three different card styles and requirements for that round. There’s a board your group will move around, so if you bring more than six players, you’ll need to bring your own extra tokens or miniatures to move around the board.
Cool Drink Cozies
I've never been a big fan of drink cozies. They're useful, of course, and I like packing them for a camping trip, but they're usually a little ugly to look at. Enter: Puffin Drinkwear, which makes drink cozies that recommend our favorite outerwear layers. It's like playing Barbie with your drinks—if Barbie were really outdoorsy. You might've seen these in Netflix's Will & Harper, and I encourage you to give your drinks their own fancy names to match these sweet fancy jackets. My husband keeps stealing the Alpine puffy style for his daily energy drink, but he has yet to name it; instead he's giggling about how fun it is to give his Red Bull a little hood to wear.
Grab a couple that best embody your friend group, whether they love their hoodies or their leather jackets, or even a spa robe that can wrap around a bottle of wine. The spa robe is my favorite, and that with a nice bottle of wine might become my new go-to white elephant for a group I don't know well (or that I know loves wine!)
-Reviewer-Photo-SOURCE-Nena-Farrell.png)
Sweet LEDs
Govee
RGBIC Pro LED Light Strips
Look, I’m probably biased in thinking everyone’s home could be improved by smart lights. I test smart bulbs all the time, and love adding panels like the LIFX Beam (read our full review here) to spots in my home. But one of my favorite ways to add a ton of ambiance is with the help of an LED light strip. WIRED reviewer Simon Hill has tested a ton of light strips, and the Govee RGBIC is his favorite budget strip that should be within the range of most white elephants. Even with such a budget price, this light strip can still display a variety of colors, let you choose or create your own effects, and is easy to install.
A Joke Box
Planning to wrap your white elephant in gift wrap? WIRED Reviews editor Kat Merck recommends stepping up your game and putting your gift of choice in a Prank-O-Box to really confuse and amuse your fellow white elephant attendees. They’re also a hit with kids, as her son loves wrapping his friends' birthday gifts in these boxes. From the cat hat ($9) to the squirrel hot tub ($10) to the 12,000-piece puzzle box ($10), there’s a Prank-O-Box for everyone.
Honorable Mentions
Nowadays Cannabis Infused Beverage, Starting at $40: Bringing a bottle of booze is a white elephant classic; my husband's work team almost exclusively exchanges bottles of liquor as a safe bet for enthusiasm. I think you can do better, though, and bring a THC spirit instead. This spirit is light and a little fruity, sitting somewhere in between the flavor profile of a floral gin and a sweet sake. My friends and I tried it mixed into a pomegranate cocktail instead of tequila, which was fantastic, and we also loved it with seltzer as a THC twist on a gin and tonic. It's delicious alone, too. I'd skip this for a work party or any group that might not be green-friendly, though.
Booze in general: This is always a safe pick! You could also bring a bottle of nonalcoholic wine if you wanted an option that everyone can have.
What Not to Bring to a White Elephant
Here's what was the least fought over at the white elephant parties I attended last year, or the most inappropriate ideas our team has heard of:
- A basic, single candle. Nobody needs a candle they could pick up at the store. Unless there's a fun theme that you're certain appeals to the group attending, like the D&D candles above for my fellow nerdy friends or book-themed candles for book lovers, skip bringing a single candle to a white elephant exchange. Or make the candle part of a gift basket; our favorite tomato-scented candle goes great with some kitchen or garden accessories.
- Puzzles. I think puzzles are hard to randomly gift—true puzzle fanatics will want a lot of pieces, while novices will want an easier one. If you choose a puzzle with too specific a theme, the receiver might not like it as much as a true puzzler or fan of that theme would. Instead, I'm gifting fun paint-by-number kits.
- Live animals. Look, you shouldn't give baby chicks at Easter, and you shouldn't give anything even remotely similar—including a mouse, fish, or anything alive.
- Sex toys and lingerie. I've actually been to a sex toy-themed gift exchange, and I'd recommend it to the right groups of friends. But otherwise, unless you're good friends with the entire group and are completely certain it wouldn't be inappropriate (and no kids will be in attendance), it's safer to buy these for your significant other instead. It's certainly inappropriate for a work gift exchange.
- Actual trash. I didn't think I had to write this one down, but at one gift exchange I went to, someone literally wrapped up a piece of garbage as a joke. As the person who unwrapped the trash gift, I beg of you: Don't do this.
Rules of a White Elephant
If you're headed to your first white elephant gift exchange, here's a quick explainer on what's about to happen.
Everyone will bring a wrapped gift (often under a certain price, like $25) and place it into a pile or central spot. Then, each person will draw a number that indicates their place in the gift-choosing order. When your number is called, you can either choose and unwrap a gift from the pile, or steal one that has already been unwrapped by someone. Most exchanges will have a limit of how often a gift can be stolen—usually around three times—so if you have the best gift in your hands when it's time for someone else to choose, there's no guarantee you'll get to keep it. If your gift is stolen, you can either unwrap a new one or steal someone else's gift (no take-backs, sorry).
These rules can vary based on the host and their house rules, so make sure to ask what the rules are at the start of the game. Happy exchanging!
Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that's too important to ignore. Subscribe Today.
English (US)