Today was the big office holiday party. No, not lots of drinks and bad drunken behavior, more like pot luck and cheap present giving. It was a "white elephant" party which is the kind of party where people bring whatever they have lying around and present that as a present. All the presents are put on the big table and one-by-one, people go up and choose a present. Or, they could grab a present somebody else got and then the person who lost their present got to choose.

Now there were two bits to in the e-mail invitation about what consisted of a present for a "white elephant" party. The first bit was about how it was something you owned and wanted to get rid of. The idea being that people wouldn't go out and spend money on anything. I read that part. The second part was about how it's supposed to be a goofy gift. I missed that part.

As the party progressed, I noticed two things- that most people went out and bought something and that most people brought something that was goofy. I didn't buy anything and my gift wasn't goofy. In fact, it was kind of good- two used books that I actually enjoyed. So you can well imagine how I'm feeling as gift after gift is opened up and presented to everyone on the floor- most to howls of laughter- and I'm sitting there thinking how much my little gift isn't what I'm supposed to bring and how it's going to be totally embarassing when somebody opens it up, and finds two non-goofy used books, all to defeaning silence. All of which kind of happened, but with a little sarcasm thrown in when the person thought it was a joke at first and sarcastically pretended to be excited about his gift.

I love Christmas parties.

As for my gift, first I got a John Waters Christmas CD. Yee-hah. Luckily, somebody traded up with me and I grabbed some sort of tacky mushroom light which would have looked totally cool on my desk. That was taken and so I wound up with a box of See's Candies that I could never finish by myself not even if I sat down and forced myself to try it.