A Jester in the King's Court

The White Elephant Gift Exchange (WEGE on the street…i.e. “Let’s get wege tonight!”) has become a holiday tradition. If you are unfamiliar with this custom, it goes as follows:

1) Find something that you do not want anymore
2) Wrap it up
3) Go to Christmas party
4) Put your gift with the others under the tree with disproportionately nice ornamentation when juxtaposed to the “treasures” now laying underneath it
5) Draw numbers for the pecking order of junk taking.
6) Steal the nicest piece of junk…or the 1 nice gift because someone didn’t understand the rules
7) Go home with new junk

Now, I had the pleasure of trying to explain this to a person who is originally from a not-so-western country. The conversation was an interesting one. He asked me the amount of money that we should spend on the exchange, and I said, “No, its not like that…just bring something you might not want anymore, or a gag gift or something”….my friend seemed confused and asked, “So…I bring trash?”. I said, “No…not trash…just something you don’t want anymore”. This concept seemed hard for him to grasp…but he finally thought he got it and brought a Bible from the 1800’s…I tried…oh well….

I realized though…how odd is the concept of “Just bring something you have that you don’t want” to people from the second of third world? Could the WEGE be a more American/Western concept? Can you imagine a missionary in Zimbabwe explaining what the WEGE is to the Zimbabweans? “Just bring something you have that you don’t want” “Um…I don’t have anything….well, aside from AIDs and lice…can I bring those?” “Um…how bout we just skip the WEGE and just go see an actual elephant”

I personally love the WEGE, I think its hilarious, an I wish I was Jewish so I could have 8 crazy nights of WEGE….but I think we should at least stop for a moment and realize what it says about what we are blessed with to have such a surplus of things that we can view some of them as junk that’s good for a laugh…whereas so many people across the world don’t have water, food or shelter…3 of the 4 most important things to survival. The 1st of which is clearly air….and the top 5 being rounded out of course, by a good po-po-po-po-po-poker face.