Tonight I attended a community dinner event. A Christmas Dinner Potluck. It was very nice.

Yet… at the end of the dinner…. once again …. it came. Like a deep, dank fog, that rolls through the streets and overthrows an entire sleeping city. Yes… the DREADED White Elephant Gift Exchange.

How did this tradition start? I wondered.

Well as it turns out…. the exchange is aptly named for the idiom itself. Or rather… it is named for the ACTUAL origins of the term… White Elephant.

Yes. As many of you know…… a white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession. (The key word here is burdensome.) And because of this…… the owner cannot dispose of it. OR…..the cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth.

The term originally derives from a story of long, long ago. You see…. the kings of Siam (which is now Thailand) had such items. So…. they would make a present of one of these animals to certain courtiers or squires or attendants.  The kings had grown tired of these people because it seems.. … these courtiers had rendered themselves obnoxious.

The long and short of it is this….. the kings wanted to ruin the recipient with the gift. The sheer cost of its maintenance would put them under.

And there you have it.

So now we have a tradition based on this tradition. The good old White Elephant. Well… it is enough to put anyone under… I’ll tell you.

But today…. was actually a day filled with many gifts. In other places and in other forms. Today was December 12th…. all day long. And that was the day that my kindred spirit was born… my soul mate.

And that… is by far… the most beautiful day of the year to me. An amazing and wonderful gift of life.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou