White Elephant Shenanigans

White Elephant Shenanigans

I’m sitting in a booth at my local Panera Bread avoiding the eyes of patrons who are staring at my shirt. I’m waiting on my cousin Adam to join me. He doesn’t know I’m wearing the shirt, his shirt, well, not his exactly. It’s my shirt, won fair and mostly square during the white elephant exchange at our last family Christmas party. The shirt is a short sleeve burnt-orange button-down with his smiling face emblazoned across the front, back, and down the sleeves. Approximately 42 Adam faces (I counted) smile back at the curious onlookers.

When Adam arrives, he takes one look at my attire, gives a thumbs-up and exclaims, “Oh, it’s on,” then disappears to his car and returns with a gift bag. It is a cold January day, Christmas has come and gone. For the second year in a row, our family has decided to skip Christmas festivities due to concerns about Covid-19, but Adam and I are here. We know what must be done to keep tradition alive and when it’s time, he’s ready to push the button on his phone so we can pull up Facebook Live and let the family enjoy our antics from afar.

In 2019, we gathered for what would be the last extended Gordon Family Christmas Party. We had no idea a pandemic was barreling down on the nation, ready to take away so much from so many. In our pre-pandemic bliss, we ate buffet-style casseroles, tortilla roll-ups, and potato salad. We watched the elder statesmen of the family – my aunt Jan, my father Larry, and my aunt Sherri huddle at a table and open gifts from each other. We watched the kids unwrap their goodies. Finally, it was time for the adults to participate in the white elephant exchange. I remember someone asking Adam, “What is DaniMichelle going home with this year?”

My first name is Dani, my middle name is Michelle, but on this side of the family it’s all one word, DaniMichelle. Legend has it, my paternal grandmother, a spitfire of a woman who was almost legally blind but kept an immaculate home and made the best grilled cheese sandwich you’ve ever tasted, didn’t like the name Dani. She said it sounded like a boy’s name. It was 1971 so she wasn’t wrong. My parents were hippies, nay, visionaries. Grandma announced she was going to call me Michelle instead. Mom and Dad swiftly rejected the idea. Without missing a beat or losing the argument, she referred to me as DaniMichelle and everyone followed suit, for years, long after she was gone, and to this very day.

Back to the party. If you’re not familiar with a white elephant exchange, these are the basic rules in an otherwise lawless game. You purchase a nondescript gift that anyone (or no one) would like to receive. Participants are chosen by numbers drawn from Red Solo cups. We don’t get fancy about it. During the first round, when a person’s number is drawn, they choose a gift from the pile, unwrap it, and show the group. Maybe it’s a calendar with horses, a bottle of booze, an oversized mug, or the holy grail of white elephant gifts – the Starbucks gift card. In round two, numbers are drawn again and the person can steal/trade his/her gift with someone or keep it. When all numbers have been drawn the second time, what you’re left with is what you’re leaving with, thanks for playing.

Three years earlier, my white elephant fate was sealed when I opened a large decorative pillow with an equally large picture of my cousin Adam’s face. It was simultaneously amazing and awful. The family loved it, but not enough to steal it so it was mine. The next year, I let my youngest child choose for me in the first round. To my delight, I started unfolding a soft blanket only to reveal a full body picture of Adam lying semi-provocatively (but clothed, thank God) in a bed of leaves. “DANG IT, ADAM!” The family howled with laughter. I went home with the gift – again. The third year is a blur and I’m pretty sure the game was rigged because that’s the year I ended up with the orange button-down shirt. I started calling these items the Adam Henderson Home Collection.

Adam insists he never intended for me to be the one to give these items a forever home. But if he’s being honest, he’s delighted that I wind up with them every year. Though I am 15 years his senior, we’re both adults so the age gap doesn’t seem as wide as it used to. We are political sparring partners. He is a devout Catholic who leans conservative. I am an LGBTQ ally who leans so far left I’m afraid it will affect my posture. We don’t see eye-to-eye on many things, except the importance of family, and maybe potatoes, because they can be cooked in so many delicious and versatile ways. Family and potatoes, that’s it. Everything else is a potential land mine but we love the hell out of each other.

In 2020, for the first time in anyone’s memory, we skipped the Gordon Family Christmas Party due to the fear of Covid-19. Adam and his family dropped by one Sunday after church to deliver the gift he was going to submit to the white elephant exchange, the one I surely would’ve wound up with – a black and white bathmat with, you guessed it, his smiling face hovering in the air, staring (seemingly) from the great beyond. There were no Gordon family giggles and no big reveal. A few days later, on New Year’s Eve, we lost our matriarch, my beloved aunt Jan. She would’ve adored that ridiculous bathmat.

Which is why, Adam and I are both standing at a Panera Bread on a chilly Saturday afternoon with people gawking at us and one customer even asking me, “Did he pay you to wear that?” Soon we’ll sit and catch up over lunch. We’ll chat about our lives, our kids, and maybe the latest news headlines. We’ll tread carefully there. But first, we must tend to business and keep tradition alive.

As Adam presses the button on his phone to record the video for Facebook Live, we know our families will be watching. It’s not the way we want to do it. There won’t be hugs, casseroles, or in-person conversations but they’ll be there, virtually, when they see me open the gift for the first time. They’ll be there to laugh right along with us (and our 15 new friends at Panera Bread) during the big reveal when I unfold – a shower curtain with a shirtless Adam standing in the woods, leaves raining down like confetti. Behind the phone he will proudly (and loudly) declare, “This is my greatest creation yet. That’s the best $34.00 I’ve ever spent.” Another item to be cataloged in the Adam Henderson Home Collection. We almost have enough accessories to furnish a very quirky Adam-centric guest bedroom and bath. Nah, I’m a good sport, but not that good.