Oh, Gag Me!!!

Several decades ago our family started a Christmas tradition called the Gag Gift Game. I don't remember how it got started, but it was the source of much amusement through the years. I understand that Debbie, Kim and Beth and their families continue the tradition to this day at the family Christmas dinner.

The rules to the Gag Gift Game are really quite simple; everyone finds (or purchases if they can't find something appropriately hideous) a gag gift that they then carefully wrap in such a way as to make it as desirable as possible. Each person places their gift in a designated spot early in the get together. Part of the game's strategy is to place your gift without anyone else seeing you so no one knows which person brought which gift. This is a VERY important part of the game because everyone wanted to figure out which gift was Nana's (she typically put cash in there) and, perhaps even more importantly, everyone wanted to figure out which gift came from the particularly unlucky person who had one of the gifts that make their appearance year after year.

The original - and still most famous - of those regular gifts is a gym suit. Young people probably have no idea what a gym suit is nor why it is so hideous.

Allow me to explain.

Decades ago someone, in their great wisdom, decided to create a special outfit for girls to wear during gym class that would prevent any boy from ever having an improper thought about any girl seen wearing it. The girl could be the most beautiful girl in the school, but she would simply be just one more bland, figure-less form when adorned in the "beautiful" one-piece gym suit.

They were hideous when the girls wore them and they seem to grow more hideous with each year of separation from those days.

One year Mom dug out her old high school gym suit, carefully wrapped it and added it to the gift pile. (Why Mom would have kept that hideous gym suit is beyond me, but she had and it became legend.) Little did we know that some unsuspecting soul would be "rewarded" with what may be the worst (best?) gag gift ever when the game ended.

At game time, several people collect all of the gifts from the gift pile and put them in the center of the table. Everyone takes turns shaking two dice. Rolling doubles allows that person to select a gift from the middle or steal a gift from someone else who then must select or steal another gift, and so on. There were usually several sets of dice running simultaneously so the selecting and stealing happen very rapidly; with a person selecting a gift and having it stolen virtually instantly.

This routine goes on for a set amount of time. The pace grows more frenzied as the timer approaches zero because each person has typically targeted a gift they want to hold at the end so they stealing becomes intense. Whatever gift a person is holding when the timer goes off is the one they keep.

At this point, the participants went around the table opening their gifts; usually to much laughter and discussion of who brought what and why. Sometimes the gift was so bizarre that the discussion had to include a description of what the item was.

The year Mom included the gym suit was a Christmas that will, to steal a phrase, live in infamy. I don't even remember who got the lovely gym suit that first year, but whoever it was opened the package when it was their turn and stared at the hideous apparel that we all knew so well.

A gym suit.

The lucky recipient held on to the gym suit for an entire year before returning it to the gift pile the following Christmas to be won by the next lucky recipient.

This started a trend. Each year, the person holding the gym suit would try to come up with the most creative way possible to package it so the players would be unable to guess which package contained it.

It was sealed inside a tin can one year.

It was hidden away with only a note informing the lucky recipient that they were now the proud owner of the gym suit another year.

As if it wasn't hard enough to try to guess which package contained the gym suit so you could avoid it, Kim made it even harder by adding her old high school gym suit one year - forcing the players to attempt to identify and avoid TWO packages each year.

While there have been many great gag gifts in the Gag Gift Game through the years, none can ever live up to the aura that surrounds the gym suits.