Improving The Best Christmas Game? Plus The Best Strategy! Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite games around Christmas time is the gift swap! Also known as a "white elephant" gift exchange or "yankie-swap!" There are many different variations so I thought I would share how to play the "best" way, at least in my humble opinion. ;)

Preparation

Have everyone bring a wrapped gift, the ideal gifts are simple things that most people would enjoy. You should leave them unmarked.
optional: make a dollar limit, usually around $20 per gift
optional: you could allow people bring "gag" gifts or gifts that are not really useful but might be funny. If you do that you probably want to do my suggested rule addition I'll talk about later.

Rules

Have everyone write their name on a piece of paper and put it into a bowl. Put all the presents into the middle, there should be one gift for each person (because everyone brought a gift)

Draw a name out of the bowl, the person whose name is drawn picks a present out of the middle and opens it and displays it to everyone.

Set the name aside and pick another name.

The person picked this time now has two options:
They can pick a new gift out of the middle and open it and display it to everyone or,
They can steal a gift from *anyone that already has a gift.
If they steal someone's gift that person then has the same two options, they can open a new present or they can steal a gift from someone else. (You cannot steal back the present that was just taken from you)
You continue these steps until someone picks a present from the middle, this ends the round.

Once the round is over you pick another name from the bowl and repeat the steps above

Continue this round until every name has been drawn from the bowl. The game is now over.

*Once a gift has been stolen twice, it is "locked" and can no longer be stolen

Additional Optional Rule

Sometimes the first person feels like it's unfair so once the game is over you could let the person who went first swap with someone that doesn't have a locked present.

My Proposed Rule Idea

One problem you can have is if anybody brings gag gifts it makes it a huge risk to pick an unopened present because if you get a gift that no one else wants you are stuck with it for the rest of the game. This can make it not very fun if you get a gift like this at the beginning of the game.

For this reason, when I play this game I never pick a present from the middle, I always steal a gift that I want and ideally one that I think other people will want. You want someone to steal your gift because then you get another chance to pick another gift.

The problem with this strategy is if everyone did it (which they should) then no one would ever pick new gifts. The best systems (or games) are ones that work well even when everyone is trying to "game the system." Here is my proposed variation of this game that I think would eliminate this problem.

You follow all the rules above but there are a few additions:

If you pick a gift out of the middle, your name gets put back into the bowl.
If your name gets picked and you already have a gift you have 3 options:
You can keep the gift you already have and your name is removed from the bowl
You can give your gift to someone that doesn't have one yet and pick another unopened present from the middle and your name gets put back into the bowl.
You can "swap" your gift with someone that already has one and your name is removed from the bowl.

The game is over when all the names have been pulled out of the bowl.

Why it Works

If you pick a new present and it is a "gag" gift, no worries because your name is still in the bowl and you will get a chance to swap it out later.

When someone gets stuck with a "gag" gift, it won't be until the end of the game so the rest of the game would be enjoyable even though they ended up with the gift they didn't want.

I am planning on testing this out tomorrow with a few members of my family to work out any potential problems and I will update if we think of a better way to do it.

Conclusion

Even if you don't want to do my addition, I think most people will still have a good time playing this game. It is one of my favorite games to play and I look forward to playing it with my extended family every year, I usually end up with something cool!

If you have any other suggestions or variations, let me know in the comments!

What are your favorite holiday games/traditions? My wife and I are about to have our first son and we will need to decide what our holiday traditions will be. Any suggestions are appreciated!

Merry Christmas! (or whatever holidays you like to celebrate! ;) )