Another twist to a King Christmas

As I go through the year, there are always things that pop into my head I think I’d like to have.

I’m not talking about big ticket items ... nothing like that.

But they are items on my “want” list as opposed to the “need” list, which is why I don’t have any of those things. I always tell myself I’ll put them on my Christmas list. The problem with that is I don’t want anyone spending their money on me at Christmas, so I just don’t share my list.

I’ve thrown a variety of gift exchange ideas at our family Christmases and everyone has always risen to the occasion. We’ve drawn names. We’ve done strictly homemade gifts. I like to keep things lively.

This year I’m mixing things up again. Thanks to Pinterest, I saw a new twist to the old exchange.

Here’s how it’s going to work ...

I’ve let my family know they will each need to bring a wrapped, non-gender specific gift valued at $50. It has to be something they’ve seen in the past year they wanted for themselves but decided it was on the “want” list instead of the “need” list because it is entirely possible they could be the recipient of their own gift.

I found several examples of Christmas gift exchange dice games — you know ... roll a one and pass your gift to the right, roll a two and steal a gift from someone else, roll a three and unwrap the gift, and on and on.

I ordered two giant, inflatable dice several months ago and so far, even to my own amazement, I’ve kept track of where I stored them. How could any game using bright red, one-foot-square dice lead to anything but fun?

I need to make a large posterboard-sized graph with directions on what to do for the total of the numbers appearing with a roll of the dice. Somewhere in my basement, there’s an old easel which I intend to use to display the instruction poster.

I plan to use the same game pieces at a holiday soup supper I’m hosting for some girlfriends. The only difference is we’re going to do a White Elephant gift exchange, which means when I’m in the basement searching for the easel, I’ll also be browsing my collections of unwanteds that have been relegated to the subterranean depths of my house for something awful to wrap and give away to a friend. Nothing says “happy holidays” like a musty relic from a pile of discarded clutter.

Again, how could it lead to anything but fun?

So anyway ...

I’m already assuming this is going to go over big with my family and we’re going to have a good time with it since they were so positive about the proposal from the time I first mentioned it.

I’ve been thinking maybe next year, along with the dice game gift exchange, I’ll place a color requirement for gifts. That would be yet another twist on King family Christmas.

Contact Dana King at 641-792-3121 ext. 6522 or dking@shawmedia.com