If you've never played Yankee Swap at Christmastime, you should probably be in therapy, because your parents obviously neglected you. Also known as Nasty Christmas, Yankee Swap is a time-honored tradition. The rules are pretty simple: Everyone puts a wrapped gift into a pile. Participants then select numbers out of a hat. The number determines the order in which you play. Everyone picks a gift in succession. If you don't like your gift, you can choose to swap it with someone who has already opened a gift. The person who really wins in the end is the guy or gal who gets to pick first. Because nobody opened a gift before them, they can swap with someone at the very end of the game, giving them the maximum number of gift options to choose from.
As you can probably imagine, Yankee Swap can get pretty heated. Here are a few things you're going to want to keep in mind when participating in a swap:
1. Yankee Swap is not a game in the traditional sense, but a lesson about the cold, harsh realities of life.
2. The stupider the gift you put into the swap, the better.
3. Feelings don't matter in Yankee Swap. Anything goes. All's fair in Yankee Swap and war.
4. If you don't make at least one child cry during the game, you aren't playing correctly.
5. Expect the competition to go into overdrive when it's revealed that someone put a gift card or cash into the game.
6. If your sibling or parents get a gift taken from them, you MUST avenge that injustice by stealing the gift back when it is your turn, whether you want it or not.
As "The Godfather" taught us, NOBODY messes with family.
6. If you're picked to go first, expect everyone to treat you like a pariah until next Christmas, when someone else is chosen as number one.
It is the best number, after all.
8. If you hear someone remark "I hate this stupid gift" by the time the game is over, consider the swap a success.
9. Expect someone to put a really tiny gift, like a gumball machine toy in a ginormous box to trick everyone.
Is that a nice thing to do? No. Is it genius? Absolutely.
10. You will inevitably have to deal with an elderly relative who feels the need to shake every wrapped gift before choosing one.
If you are faced with this issue, give them two minutes to do what they need to do, then tell them to move it or lose it.
11. Before participating in any Yankee Swap, make sure to watch the episode of "The Office" in which the cast plays the game.
It'll teach you everything you need to know about this cold, hard, bloody battle of wits. As Dwight Schrute notes in the episode, "Yankee Swap is like Machiavelli meets Christmas."
