I spent Christmas with my wife’s family this year.  In addition to attending Roman Catholic mass and eating Manhattan clam chowder, the main difference between my family traditions and hers is that most of her family is local, which means they have enough people around on Christmas for a Yankee swap.  Only my wife’s family refers to the game as, “Chinese grab bag,” which I assume has its roots in some negative stereotype about the way that Chinese people share gifts, but has become nearly politically correct as nearly everything up for grabs in the game is made in China.
 

I love this tradition because while I grew up with many Christmas traditions, none of them involved as much confusion or shouting, except the tradition where my father made us all line up by age in the hallway on Christmas morning and my mother would yell at my father because her hair was messy and she didn’t want to be in the picture.  Some years, when my grandparents were visiting, my father would make his mother get in the picture as well, which she hated.

In Chinese grab bag, everyone takes a number.  This number establishes the order in which people open gifts.  The people at the end of the game have a higher probability of getting the gift of their choice and the ones at the beginning have a high probability of getting a scented candle which is a crappy gift even in a game that contained a 3 liter bottle of grape soda.  The rules of the game are murky, subject to interpretation and bickering and are too complicated to explain, but generally, they facilitate a disorganized movement of gifts from player to player until someone is stuck with a book about making balloon animals and someone else is stuck with 5 worthless lottery tickets after feeling very excited about having ended up with them. 

The key to playing the game effectively is to involve several strong-willed people such as myself, who, despite the fact that nothing is the game is worth more than $10 and most of it will end up left at Grandma’s house, get visibly upset when someone tries to steal the same gift twice in one round, or steals back the fart machine that someone took from them a few minutes prior. 

Three years ago was my first experience with the game and I brought a beautiful pair of jumbo Chinese-made lion slippers from Wal Mart.  They were somewhat of a hot item and I tried to win them for myself but instead, ended up with 6 pint glasses that said “bling” on the side of them.  The proud owner was my wife’s teenage cousin who used her late pick to steal them right off of my feet.  The following year, I had another crack at the lions when the cousin reentered them in the game because much to my dismay, she hadn’t even taken yet worn them or removed the tags.

This year, my wife and I had Thanksgiving with my family, which meant that the Chinese Grab Bag Steering Committee had to meet without us.  We heard a review of the minutes from mother in law who said that someone moved to establish clear rules for the upcoming game and that the motion was seconded and affirmed by almost everyone but that eventually there was so much disagreement about what the rules should be that everyone sort of dropped the conversation.    

With so much uncertainty leading into the game, my wife and I decided to play it safe, she by offering a matching orange coffee maker, iron and toaster, and I, by cruising a dollar store and picking an epic assortment of expired silly string and private label soft drinks as well as a Spiderman watch and other plastic toys that were guaranteed to break almost immediately.

Prior to the start of this year’s game we found rules on-line and printed them out before some of the more competitive participants arrived.  The main change was the institution of the safe-haven for the 4th "owner" of any gift.  Though there was some hand wringing at the notion of a codified gaming experience, everyone grew to appreciate the structure and we ended up with an organized game that contained minimal voice raising but had all of the cogitation we have come to expect from some of my wife’s deliberate relatives.

I enjoyed this year’s contest but think I’ll push for the dissolution of the rules in next year’s event.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the peace and quiet, or coming away with a two-tone CVS pocket knife with built-in LED light, but I think the real meaning of Chinese grab bag is lost when the fourth person holding the lottery tickets is able to take refuge in the rules and doesn’t have to worry about ending up with a pot holder.