17 White Elephant Gifts Worth Fighting Over

I've never been a big fan of drink cozies. They're useful, of course, and I like packing them for a camping trip, but they're usually a little ugly to look at. Enter: Puffin Drinkwear, which makes drink cozies that recommend our favorite outerwear layers. It's like playing Barbie—if Barbie were really outdoorsy—with your drinks. You might've seen these in Netflix's Will & Harper, and I encourage you to give your drinks their own fancy names to match these sweet fancy jackets. My husband keeps stealing the Alpine puffy style for his daily energy drink, but he has yet to name it; instead he's giggling about how fun it is to give his Red Bull a little hood to wear.

Grab a couple that best embody your friend group, whether they love their hoodies or their leather jackets, or even a spa robe that can wrap around a bottle of wine. The spa robe is my favorite, and that with a nice bottle of wine might become my new go-to white elephant for a group I don't know well (or that I know loves wine!)

Someone, if not multiple people, loves cereal at your white elephant. And this gift is for them, especially if they’re always forgetting to make it in advance. The dishwasher-safe CrunchCup has a small tubular reservoir for cereal nested inside a lidded plastic tumbler that holds a little over a cup of milk. The idea is that the user drinks from the cup and the cereal and milk combine in their mouth, not in a bowl where the cereal will become soggy.

Tip from someone who might use this to sneak their child’s Lucky Charms while reading at night, which is definitely, most certainly not me because I’m a mature adult: Block half of the milk hole with your lower lip so cereal has time to come out, otherwise you’ll get a mouthful of milk and no cereal. It also works best with smaller-gauge cereal like Cheerios, not larger, heavier chunks or flakes like Raisin Bran. Not that I would know any of this from firsthand experience, of course, being a grown adult who eats grown adult things. —Kat Merck

A good white elephant gift is one anyone can use, and these adorable sauce dishes are begging to be used anywhere in your home. Obviously, you can use them for sauces like soy sauce, but they're also large and flat enough to use as jewelry catchers or even a small set of keys. I've got one at my desk holding a couple hair clips and a hair tie for quick sprucing before a meeting, and the rest are downstairs in my kitchen waiting for sushi night. Plus, how cute are the different cats on each plate?

I’ll tell you right now: The Big Enter Supersized Key enter key is a little too much fun to have on my desk, and a great thing to bring for a white elephant with your coworkers, fellow work-from-home folks, or friends who are allowed to really decorate their cubicle. The punchable enter key’s function is simple: You punch it to hit enter. It connects to a computer via a USB cord, and is nice and responsive so you don’t have to punch it super hard. It’s a fun addition to lively Slack chats, or a secret way to be passive-aggressive without anyone knowing. Unless the winner of this supersized key has a cubicle partner. But that’s their problem—if they can manage to win in the first place during the game.

Bringing a bottle of booze is a white elephant classic; my husband's work team almost exclusively exchanges bottles of liquor as a safe bet for enthusiasm. I think you can do better, though, and bring a THC spirit instead. (Maybe not to the office party, though.) That's right—this Nowadays spirit is THC-infused, so instead of giving the gift of ABV, let your friends fight over imbibing some THC.

This spirit is light and a little fruity, sitting somewhere in between the flavor profile of a floral gin and a sweet sake. My friends and I tried it mixed into a pomegranate cocktail instead of tequila, which was fantastic, and we also loved it with seltzer as a THC twist on a gin and tonic. It's delicious alone, too. I have the Micro Dose option, which has 2 milligrams of THC for every 1.5 ounces. I could feel the THC buzz after two drinks (about 4 milligrams total), and it kicks in a little while after you drink, like an edible would. If you're worried a straight THC spirit will intimidate your friends, Nowadays also makes pre-mixed THC cocktails you can buy in a six-pack ($32).

Being a nerd isn’t as lame as it used to be, nor does it seem so weird to play Dungeons & Dragons like it used to, either. If you’ve got a few dungeon divers in your white elephant group (or maybe it’s a white elephant with your D&D party!), these soy-wax candles from GMDice are a must. There are a ton of fun scent options, all themed around D&D spells, classes, and places you might go during an adventure.

My favorite scents I’ve tried are Hunter’s Mark ($33, 20-ounce jar) which smells like a fresh forest; Dwarven Tavern ($16, 8-ounce tin), which smells like warm honey mead; and Chainmail Bikini ($7, 2-ounce tin), which smells like a tiki cocktail, and there’s a ton more worth exploring and shopping. The candles come in 2-ounce, 8-ounce, 16-ounce, and 20-ounce sizes, plus wax melts. Personally, I’d grab two of the 8-ounce options for a white elephant gift, depending on the price limit, or a handful of 2-ounce candles in a variety of fun-sounding scents.

If you’re looking for something kitschy but useful, Ototo’s accessories are the way to go. They’re adorable to have in the kitchen while serving a purpose. The red crab, dubbed simply “Red” ($14), doubles as a spoon holder and a steam releaser, and it’s also a cute little friend to have hanging out around the kitchen counter waiting for his time to shine. I also love the little fridge, “Cool Guy” ($17), that you can fill with baking soda to absorb odors in your fridge. There’s a mushroom version too, named “Fun Guy” ($17). They’re adorable but tiny, so definitely plan to buy at least two, or buy one and pair a larger item with it, like the crab and a new kitchen spoon he can hold up.

Mugs are a holiday exchange classic. Do one better with a colorful Owala tumbler designed for hot liquids like tea or coffee. That's right, Owala isn't just our favorite reusable water bottle. The SmoothSip Slider is designed to fit into drink holders, has a slider to close the spout and prevent hot liquid spills, and comes in a bunch of fun colors, plus the 12-ounce size is silly cute. There's both a 12-ounce and 20-ounce size. The slider takes a little effort to use—I found myself using two hands to do it—but worth it to be spill-free. Pair it with some coffee beans or a great set of tea bags for a full-package gift.

Finding a good group game is hard, especially one that can accommodate both small and large groups. The best one I’ve tried is Listography, which is designed for three to six players but I’ve seen it successfully accommodate up to 10 people. To play, one person will pull a card with a prompt—things like “states that border Canada”—and everyone needs to make a list of answers. How many things you write down and how obscure you want to get varies, since there are three different card styles and requirements for that round. There’s a board your group will move around, so if you bring more than six players, you’ll need to bring your own extra tokens or miniatures to move around the board.

Legos are fun for all ages, and Lego has a ton of cool sets we’d all be proud to display around our homes. Architectural sets! Floral sets! Massive Star Wars sets! Most of these, of course, won’t fit into the white elephant budget. But one set gets pretty close: the Dried Flower Centerpiece Set. It’s usually around $40, which might not work for some lower-entry white elephants, but is a perfect choice for the $40 to $50 ones. It’s a fun set that someone can build alone or in a duo—I built mine with my husband for Valentine’s Day a couple years ago, and now it’s a permanent fixture on our bookshelves. It even survived a move!

If your white elephant group has a few nail fans, whether it’s friends who always have their nails done or ones who lament about wishing they had more time to get their nails done, this is the gift to catch their eye. Glamnetic is known for its magnetic eyelashes, but the company's press-on nails come in a ton of fun designs (though there’s no magnetic trick here, just regular nail glue). Glamnetic’s Snow Place Like Home collection has a ton of seasonal options for your friends to fight over, or there’s always the classic French tip collection if you want to give something that works year-round. Don’t forget to include some press-on nail remover ($12), especially since it’s such a pretty bottle.

Look, I’m probably biased in thinking everyone’s home could be improved by smart lights. I test smart bulbs all the time, and love adding panels like the LIFX Beam (8/10, WIRED Recommends) to spots in my home. But one of my favorite ways to add a ton of ambiance is with the help of an LED light strip. WIRED reviewer Simon Hill has tested a ton of light strips, and the Govee RGBIC is his favorite budget strip that should be within the range of most white elephants. Even with such a budget price, this light strip can still display a variety of colors, let you choose or create your own effects, and is easy to install.

The thing about white elephants and other holiday parties is that it means the new year is right around the corner. Twenty twenty-five? Already? Give the gift of being prepared with a fun planner a lucky person can start using come January 1. There are a lot of fantastic paper planners out there, but our favorite ones are from Happy Planner since there are a ton of options and the planners are well-priced. Most of Happy Planner’s 2025 planners are around $35, but there’s a few in the $20 range if you have a lower price limit.

My favorite white elephant win is one of these. The one I won was also shaped like a banana, but I’ve found you all something similar that works better than the banana phone did: a bright yellow phone that looks like it’s ready to sit on the rotary dial. It really captures the feeling and sound of using those landline phones, too, with the tinny audio through both the speaker and microphone. It’s still plenty easy to understand everything, and it adds a little touch of fun to answering quick voice calls on a computer or if you’re sick of your usual headset. (I clearly am.) It’s got a 3.5-mm audio jack, but maybe throw in an adapter if you think your crowd would use it with an iPhone rather than a computer or Android.

Planning to wrap your white elephant in gift wrap? WIRED reviews editor Kat Merck recommends stepping up your game and putting your gift of choice in a Prank-O-Box to really confuse and amuse your fellow white elephant attendees. They’re also a hit with kids, as her son loves wrapping his friends' birthday gifts in these boxes. From the cat hat ($9) to the squirrel hot tub ($9) to the 12,000-piece puzzle box ($10), there’s a Prank-O-Box for everyone.