Steady through the morning.

The frustration over the concept of white elephant gift exchanges pushed me to get my laundry done in record time. In all seriousness, I don't understand how they managed to take off in their current form. I never heard about them until I was into college, and I'd almost like to go back to that blithe ignorance - the common variations all seem to bend towards some sort of exploitation of social expectations to create a feedback cycle of disappointment and unhappiness.

Like deliberately getting someone something you know they'll dislike for the sake of your own pleasure.

It took a good deal of back-and-forth to get it explained to me that the intent of this particular fandom White Elephant exchange was the prompts, not the fics themselves: prompts are submitted anonymously and the participants get to pick from them. It's better, and it's still not a good system if someone can't get something they love and make the call to opt out - both keeping their current prompt, and denying themselves the chance to trade it in later if they see something else they'd like to write more.

"Trade around stuff you don't want with people that do want to take it home" is a good idea, and the way the whole white elephant thing seems to largely be practiced in American society is one of those things which has me happy to be a social minority.