Be of Good Cheer for this Christmas Ornament Exchange

I had been invited to my very first Christmas ornament exchange party. I didn’t know anything about these parties, but it seemed like a harmless enough activity. I envisioned we ladies would have some wine, nibble on chocolate and commiserate about the trials and tribulations of raising children. No one would have to model lingerie, listen to the virtues of candles or make an enormous purchase of kitchen utensils.

The instructions were simple: Bring a wrapped Christmas ornament of reasonable cost, between five and fifteen dollars. This being my first exchange, I decided to spring for the maximum cost, fifteen big ones, hoping to avoid public humiliation in front of my fellow exchangers.

At the party, after a few mugs of mulled wine and cookies, everyone drew a number. Wrapped ornaments were to be selected in the order of the number drawn. Clearly, I thought, the person selecting first has the best chance of selecting something stellar while the person selecting last simply has to take what’s left.

But, no! This was no ordinary ornament exchange. This version was much more interesting. This was Survivor: Christmas Ornament Exchange. If you thought watching people compete for immunity was cutthroat, you’ve seen nothing until you’ve watched fifteen slightly inebriated women fight over a pair of reindeer ornaments from Pottery Barn.

Person #1 begins the game by selecting and unwrapping an ornament from the pile. They’re stuck with that ornament, for the moment. Person #2 has a choice: she can choose to unwrap another ornament or, if she really likes Person #1’s ornament, she can steal it. If Person #2 steals it, Person #1 has to select again from the unwrapped pile. Regardless of where you are in the line-up, subsequent ‘choosers’ can unwrap a new ornament from the pile or steal one from ornaments that have already been unwrapped. If she does this, then the person from whom she’s stolen gets to pick a replacement from someone else or from the wrapped pile. Clear as Christmas fruitcake, right?

Just to make sure there’s a bitter end to this ornament snatching, an ornament may only have three owners. Owner #1 opens the ornament; Owner #2 is the person who steals it from Owner #1. The final owner, Owner #3, is the person who, of course, steals it from Owner #2.

Confused? I sure was!

But if you’re Owner #3 of, oh, let’s say the Pottery Barn reindeer, you’re done. You can pretty much bask in the glory of having gotten exactly what you wanted. The rest of us hyenas got to fight for the leftovers. It was pretty much exactly like that.

Don’t even think about stashing your ornament out of site behind your purse. My particular group of roller derby gals had no problem knocking over my purse to see what I was trying to hide.

I stole the Pottery Barn reindeer from Owner #1 and then found myself in the unenviable position of having them stolen from me by the person selecting after me. I then opened ornament after ornament only to have it snatched from me almost immediately by the next chooser in line. Every time I boldly took an ornament from its first owner, soon-to-be Owner #3 stole it from me. Clearly, these ladies had played this game before and I was woefully unprepared and without a strategy.

At one point, I opened a rather plainly wrapped box and whoa, Nelly!Someone had brought a Christopher Radko ornament! Clearly, she’d either violated the rules or this was a knock-off purchased in an alley from a guy pretending to be Santa. But it was as if someone had thrown chum to a school of sharks. I swear I lost the sleeve of my shirt as that Christopher Radko ornament was ripped from my shaking hands. I’m telling you, these women must have had basic boot camp training at a Nordstrom Half-Yearly sale.

It soon came to pass that I had the job of either opening the final unwrapped ornament or dashing the dreams of one of my fellow hyenas. Not wanting to prolong the agony, I chose to open the last ornament. While everyone gave a sigh of relief, I gingerly removed the delicate tissue wrapping from what I was sure would be the most prized ornament of the night, but, instead, turned out to be—cheese knives.

As I pondered where on the invitation it had said ‘cheese knife exchange,’ the woman on my right said “So, I’m Jewish. I like cheese knives.”

At that moment, it registered with me that this woman would be about as familiar with ornaments as I am with gefilte fish. We both burst into fits of laughter. I realized that I didn’t need an ornament as much as I needed those cheese knives to remind me of all the wonderful things about the holiday season and the many different ways in which we celebrate.

And so, as we continued to drink wine and show off our ornaments or, in my case, cheese knives, I was thinking I played a pretty good hand for my first year; a little meek, perhaps; an easy mark. But they won’t be expecting it next time when, without an ounce of remorse or compassion, I finesse into next year’s must haveornament. I’m hoping for a cheese plate to go with my knives.