I didn't know where to put this, but would love to know if anybody in here has ever played Dirty Santa during the Christmas holidays?

If so, did you or would you, steal your own gift back?

Does everybody know what this is? If not, its a game where a bunch of family or friends buy gifts set at a certain price range.Then all the gifts are put under the tree. Numbers are drawn and whoever has number one can pick the first gift from under the tree. Once its opened, then the person who has the number two can either steal NUMBER ONE's gift, or pick another one from under the tree...and so it goes. If your gift is stolen, you can either steal a gift or get a new one.

So...anybody?

We do this at our 55+ church group every January - the premise is that everyone regifts something they received at Christmas. It's hilarious! Last year, the hottest item was a coffee cup with two packages of specialty coffees attached. By the end of the afternoon, I think almost everyone had stolen it at some point.

JJ...love dirty Santa...always starts out so prim and proper and ends up as a near street brawl! We'll be playing it next week at the writing group at my house. Hope you get to come!

Eagle...I love the notion of doing it after Christmas...what a way to re-circulate those gifts that just aren't quite right. What's the craziest gift you've gotten in the past?

Up here in the north we do the same game during the holidays...the only difference it's called a "Yankee Swap"....had no idea what Dirty Santa was until I read it!!! It's a fun game. It seems that there's always that one coveted item and another few that everyone is trying to get rid of!

Oh...my sister does a fun version of this at her family Christmas...she buys all the gifts...one that she thinks would be ideal for each person...then let the games begin...sometimes the guys end up with the girls' fancy Christmas socks...and one year someone got Grandpa's country cured ham...it's always a lot of fun!

Jane, most of the gifts that appear at our church group's version of this are actually quite nice gifts. But one year I did end up with this seashell doily - a huge round placemat made out of tiny seashells. It's very pretty, my granddaughter loves it, but it's too uneven to use as a doily or placemat. We use it as a hotpad, but eventually I'll give it to my granddaughter - though somewhere in my hazy brain I think we might have already given it to her.

One thing that surprised me was the clay fish that we "donated" to the game last year. Someone in Cuba had given it to us years ago, but we really had no use for it. Well, it was very popular, lots of people stealing it. We found out afterwards that everyone thought that the writing in the corner was a famous (to them - I had never heard of the name) sculptor's name - but in fact it merely read "Cuba". Lots of laughs over that one.

Games like this are so much fun and the laughter can be heard for miles. I just love it. I also like the tradition I started last year of going over to my son's, getting my grandbeauty, and just me and Lea going around looking at all of the Christmas decorations and singing carols. We go by Mickey Dees, get a drink, then ride around for about two hours.

The only thing her Mom didn't like was that Lea sang Jingle Bells for a month afterwards. She was only two. This year, I'll have TWO grandbeauties to ride around and sing with.

I love it!

Yee Gads, I am an old fart and still ride all around looking at the decorations. I know, I know, I live in the most lighted city on the planet, BUT Christmas lights are different from the others.

At Sunset Park every year they have a ten mile or so drive through the park itself, with Christmas scenes and decorations all along the way and it gets bigger each year.

You pay $10.00 or $5.00 and a bag of slightly used or new clothing for the poor. I never miss it, and they even have carhops that you can get hot chocolate and cookies from without ever leaving your car...Ho, Ho, Ho, what a wonderful Christmas!!!

Dirty Santa sounds like a hoot.

When my nephew was young, I used to take him Christmas shopping for his mom. We would shop, go out to eat and I would teach hime some songs to sing. I remember him driving his mom crazy with Rudolph for weeks! Of course, she loved the pretty presents she received every year.

My ex-son-in-law used to say that I would be held accountable come Judgement Day for all the goofy songs I taught the girls...notice I said ex...you don't think it was the songs do you?

Chatty...that sounds like a delightful tradition...I've done the walk through at Bellingrath Gardens in Mobile...and a carriage ride through a huge park (can't remember the name) in New Orleans...both were fabulous...