The Great White Elephant Gift E·X·C·H·A·N·G·E
One Guy, One Year and 366 Random Gifts
In 2012, a leap year, Dan Dean met a different person every single day and traded a white elephant gift with each one. A ceramic cheetah head. A surgical bone screw. A goose made out of toilet paper. This is what happened.
The book is being finalised. Join the list and we will send one email the day it goes on sale.
About the Book
In 2012, a leap year, Dan Dean set out to meet a different person every day for all 366 days, with one goal: exchange a white elephant gift with each one. Over the course of the year, he met dozens of strangers, passed along gifts both weird and whimsical, made new friends and chronicled every encounter on a daily blog — complete with a brief, quirky interview with each participant.
The Great White Elephant Gift Exchange is a heartfelt, wholesome and witty exploration of what happens when we’re intentional about forging personal connections. The world has changed a lot since 2012 — we’re more isolated, more glued to our phones and our society feels increasingly strained and fragmented. Needed now more than ever, this book is an inspirational record of one man’s quest to connect with strangers in a unique, lighthearted way. Readers will come away inspired to be more intentional in making new friends, and to bring more joy, connection and humor into their own lives.
- A $25 Amazon gift card
- A ceramic cheetah head
- Absinthe gumballs
- A camouflage Snuggie
- A Vera Wang princess basket
- An Elvis guitar clock
- A toilet seat and a mannequin head
- A half-used box of Efferdent
- A blown-glass ship in a bottle
- The Giant Bag Clip
- A 2003 Three Stooges calendar
- A lime-shaped desk fan
- An avocado-green Crock-Pot
- A Hear-No-Evil frog
- A handcrafted Polish beer stein
- A miniature astronaut
- A Chia Pet shaped like a president
- A surgical bone screw
- An "Old Geezer" hearing aid
- A four-foot inflatable flamingo
- A giant foam chicken-wing hat
- A leg pedaler
- A gnome garden statue
- A wooden chicken and six eggs
- A bear cookie jar with no lid
- An inflatable alligator
- An emergency airplane oxygen mask
- A 1/2" female-threaded sillcock
- A Kaito shortwave radio
- A Radio Shack metal detector
- A monkey carved from a coconut
- A "White Trash" rubber chicken
- A handlebar-mustache bottle opener
- An indoor kite
- A 20-sided die
- A decorative box full of pennies
- Ten dollars
- A goose made out of toilet paper
- A "Mother Knows Best" mug
- A "Cabana Rd." street sign
- A ceramic turtle
- A ceramic Snoopy bank
- A one-and-a-half-year-old bar of soap
- A "Disco Queen" fish ornament
- A Giant-Ass Pen
- Dog-opoly
- A fire extinguisher
- A chicken clock
- A hardhat stress ball
- A fireman's hat folded from newspaper
- A Japanese name stamp
- A Darth Vader Pez dispenser
- A brass Gillette safety razor
- A brain cell plush doll
- A bowling pin
- An Ugly Sweater T-shirt
- Bucky Balls
- A box of Miracle Fruit tablets
- A 1934 "Campus Queen" trophy
- An automatic jar opener
- A water clock
- A 1984 Ripley's Believe It or Not board game
A few of the 366. Every one of them real, and every one of them given to an actual person by another actual person.
About the Author
One email, on launch day
That is the whole plan. One email, on launch day. No newsletter, no drip campaign, no white elephant gift you did not ask for.
Your address is stored on this site and is never sold or shared.
Get the book
366 gifts. One year. A surprisingly moving argument for talking to strangers.
The book is being finalised. Join the list and we will send one email the day it goes on sale.
Questions
Is this a true story?
Yes. Every exchange happened, on the date it says it happened, with a real person. Dan wrote each one up the same day on a blog that ran for the whole of 2012 and is still online.
How did the chain work?
Dan started with a $25 Amazon gift card and gave it away on January 2nd. That person handed him something in return, which he gave to the next person the next day, and so on for the rest of the year. Nobody knew who their gift was going to or where it had come from — Dan was the only person who saw both ends. He kept whatever he was handed on December 31st.
Are the people in the book real? Are their names used?
The people are real. Their names are not used, and neither are their photographs. When Dan started in 2012 he promised participants he would publish a first name and nothing more. The book tightens that further: everyone is described by what they do or where they were, and no one is identifiable.
Where can I buy it?
It will be on Amazon in paperback and ebook. The listing is not live yet — the book is still being finalised. Join the list above and you will get exactly one email on the day it goes on sale.