Holiday traditions are a plenty in homes and offices places all over the world. You’ve got your office parties, family dinners, Secret Santa, and gift exchanges. The possibility of getting a GOOD surprise is rare, but can sometimes happen. That sentiment can be blown apart though in some kinds of gift exchange when what you have could be taken from you at any time. On the other hand, it can also end with $175,000 like it did for Lori Janes.
White elephant, Yankee swap, and Bad Santa are well-known versions of gift exchanges. The long and short of it is one person picks a gift from an assortment of presents and opens it. The next person can either choose another present or steal an already opened present from someone else. If someone does get a present stolen, they are then able to steal the gift of someone else; well depending on the version you play that is. There may or may not be an inherit element of sadism in this game.
For Lori Janes, things went from frustration to exultation pretty quickly. During an office party at the Harmon Dental Center in Kentucky, some complicated Christmas magic happened. After the $25.00 gift card to TJ Maxx was taken from Janes, she ended up having to pick another gift from someone else. The gift she picked? A $25.00 in scratch-off lottery tickets from another co-worker.
From there you can guess what happened. As it turns out, one of the lotto tickets was worth $175,000, which Janes discovered doing the scratch offs in the office. “Everyone was going insane. People were getting their calculators out and double-checking,” Janes said. “A couple of people even scanned the ticket on the lottery’s app, just to make sure.”
Congratulations to Lori for the ultimate white elephant win!
Let’s also give credit to that episode of “The Office” that helped bring the Yankee swap game to more widespread attentionYankee swap game to more widespread attention. And also created a whole new level of ruthlessness when it comes to the act of gift giving.
