So every year we have a white elephant party. It’s a twist on the old standard, for many reasons. One, we don’t give crap gifts. We usually have a blend of funny as well as nice. Like, an American Idol DVD, and a gift certificate to Amazon, or an old Monopoly game, and a bottle or two of wine and some chocolate.

Basically everyone brings a gift of $25 or less, wrapped, and hopefully you come away with something fun and enjoyable that is the envy of the other people who weren’t able to steal it from you.

However…something odd has happened the last two years in a row, and it has to be more than coincidence. For the last two years, David and I have wound up with the same gift that we brought. And we’re not talking about this being a small group of people with high odds, we’re talking about 20+ people, all moving gifts around somewhat randomly.

Plus, our gifts aren’t exactly crap that no one would want. They usually consist of a pretty nice gift basket with wine, gift certificates, food items, or other sundries. This year we packed up, what I call, the naughty picnic basket. It consistent of wine glasses, wine, cheeses, meats, condoms, lube, a book on penile health, sanitary wipes, chocolate, and a bunch of other stuff thrown in for good measure. It was a pretty nice gift, all in a cute basket, and valued at more than $25. (I have a hard time following my own rules, especially since it was my party)

After the first round of gift openings, our friends Cody & Emily wound up with the basket. They were very pleased with the items and were hoping that no one would steal it. But somehow, through a strange twist of fate, our bottle of port and box of fudge went flying across the room to them, and we wound up back with the basket we brought. I was amazed. Of the 15+ gifts, how on earth did we wind up with the same thing that I’d spent over an hour putting together? And how come we were the only couple that got stuck like this?

Although, I could analyze for several minutes……I won’t. We decided to give the gift basket to my friends Keith and Serena, because we didn’t have a need to keep it for ourselves.

It was just very odd. Two years in a row to wind up with your own gift. Makes me think that next year, I’m going to come up with something so outlandish that everyone will want it, and there will be no way it will come back to us. Maybe a blow up doll stuffed with dollar bills or something