White Elephant

It’s the holiday season, which means young professionals everywhere are trying to navigate a strange new tradition: the office White Elephant party. Or – who can waste a small sum most hilariously on a gift no one wants?

In all nerdiness, I love the White Elephant. It’s just too funny. We start with the standard benign holiday gift exchange and pump it up with competition, stealing, inside jokes, and booze. It’s like Xmas on steroids. For those not familiar with the rules, let’s review. Co-workers who only marginally know each other agree to limit themselves to a low dollar amount to buy the best or funniest gift that money can buy. You’ve got 2 options: unwrap a gift or steal one that’s already opened. Stealing rules vary by group. If nobody steals, it’s just an awkward gathering of near-strangers with shitty presents.

For White Elephant, you really can’t say whether it’s better to give than receive. There’s tons of competition of both sides. Because it’s so public, your reputation is at stake. There’s pressure to be the one who brings the most “on” gift — like the adult diapers that perfectly capture the office’s sense of humor. Then, there’s the competition of actually going home with the best gift. There’s the combo of luck and craftiness (like gambling) that makes it so much fun.

This is all top of mind because a friend of mine had a disastrous first White Elephant experience. The gift really wasn’t bad in comparison to the rest (lottery tickets, picture album, booze), just different. He brought an unusual design-y coffee cup. Think museum gift shop.

So anyway, the very drunk host (who happens to be everyone’s boss at the party) picks this gift and is really loud about his distaste for the cup. We’re talking “Who brought this shitty gift? I can’t believe anyone paid $25 for this?” etc. Totally rude in normal gift giving, but not unheard of in White Elephant. So, our friend defends the gift, which becomes some kind of drunken debate among the entire party…which turns the coffee cup/our friend into THE joke of the party. Red faced, public mortification.

So in a normal gift exchange, this wouldn’t happen all out in the open. It’d all be in our heads. You would say thank you and mumble something about how unique or useful it is, put it in the closet and probably bring it to your office White Elephant party next year.

That’s the beauty of White Elephant. It takes everything we think about when we give and get gifts, and throws it out in public.

Insight from a drink menu

Working in marketing, we love us some labels to sweepingly categorize and stereotype a group of people we wish to sell to.  We especially like to piggy back on the societal trends of the day by making up acronyms or words from combining other words  (see shopportunistic, Yuppie, DINKs, etc).

The other night at post-work “Ladies Night” drinks I came face to face with the perfect marketing word for the trendy segment of our generation in LA – behold, The Eco-Tini.

As defined on the drink menu:

VeeV Acai Spirit, Fresh Cucumber, Fresh Mint, Simple Syrup, Soda

(VeeV Acai Spirit is a carbon neutral certified spirit and $1 of each bottle sold goes towards green iniatitives)

Hilarious.

As defined by me: 

Sex and the City aspiration with a dash of conscious consumerism/responsibility

She’s your mid-twenties girl in a hip city (LA, NY, and now Chicago will do – thanks Obama.)  Her POV on  friendships, men, and work/life balance was heavily influenced by the ladies of Sex and the City (on TV during her formative teen years).  However, just running after the glossy SATC totems (designer shoes and clothes, an apartment she can’t afford) is not exactly what the zeitgeist ordered anymore.

So now we have tons of former fashionistas hitting up Santa Monica and Hollywood organic farmers’ markets and looking for the perfect aluminum water bottle…while balancing a freewheeling, hedonistic early twenties.

Self-contradiction is tough, but it does breed creativity.  A few Sundays ago in the New York Times, some media certified Eco-tini made the argument that couture is actually sustainable because it’s a lasting investment.  Whatever helps you sleep at night.