Bring your distributed team together with the ultimate virtual holiday party

White Elephant is a simple gift-swapping game played by millions of people each year. Each participant brings a gift, is assigned a random number, and then one at a time each person either unwraps a new gift, or steals a gift from someone else. The game is finished when everyone has a gift. The simple formula results in a truly fun and memorable experience.

Learn more about how to play White Elephant.

In the virtual event you submit a gift online before the big day by pasting a link to an item from any retailer. On the day of the event you all jump on a video call to unwrap gifts virtually. The system controls the order of play and allows players to swap and steal to their hearts content. At the end of the event we let everyone know who won their gift so they can coordinate delivery, or you can get a report of the results to handle as the Game Admin.

We also offer options to manage your participants and their gifts yourself as the Game Admin. For a complete rundown of how to play check out our White Elephant Rules.

When it comes to actually playing the game, only one person (what we call the ‘Game Lead’) will have the ability to choose the next gift to unwrap or steal. This person will share their screen, and everyone can follow along at home and tell the Game Lead what they want to do on their turn. This actually streamlines the gameplay so everyone is watching the same screen in real-time on Zoom. It makes for a better shared experience, and if someone can’t log in themselves to White Elephant Online it still works just fine.

We encourage everyone to login when the game is being played. This way all the participants can check in, see what number they got and view what gifts have been opened at their own leisure so they can plan their next move!

This depends on how you want your game to work. If you want everyone to submit and virtually wrap their own gifts, they will need to signup. If you want to handle all of the gift submission and distribution as the Game Admin, then everyone can just show up on game day ready to play!

It’s easy to buy as many games as you need for your group and then assign individual ‘Game Leads’ to run the games. As the admin, you will still have access to all of the games you purchased for overall management. This includes access to the end of game summaries as well.

When your gift swap is over, everyone will receive an email telling them who won their gift, which gift they won, and any action they need to take. The action required is determined by the Gift Distribution Option you select when setting up your game. The most popular option is "Player sends their own gift", which means each player will get their recipient's mailing address and/or email address to coordinate shipping on their own. If your company is covering the cost of the gifts, you can select "Game Organizer will ship & pay for gifts", and use our end-of-game summary report to make this easy. Learn more about all of our gift distribution options here.

Yes! Our platform will work globally. The main consideration would be the shipping of the gifts. The actual purchasing and shipping of gifts happens outside our platform, on the original retailer website. As long as everyone submits from a retailer that ships internationally, then it will work fine. Amazon is usually a safe bet, but it does depend on your specific circumstances. For more thoughts and recommendations on this topic, check out our blog post about hosting an international exchange.