The white elephant in the room

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Over the last thousand or so years, the rituals and traditions surrounding Christmas have been solidified in our minds as perfectly ordinary, though they’re anything but. In reality, if you tried to explain something like Christmas nutcrackers to an alien — or perhaps Tarzan — they’d look at you like you were nuts.

Every year, we hang oversized socks and participate in White Elephant gift exchanges and the like without question; but, this year, it’s time to ask how and why these traditions came to be.

Snatchy Christmas Rat?

Do you call the yearly present swap — with real or joke gifts — a “White Elephant”? The game goes by many names, including Bad Santa; Cutthroat Christmas; Yankee Swap; and, my personal favorite, Snatchy Christmas Rat. The roots of this pachyderm present pastime have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas; but, rather, originate with an alleged practice of Southeast Asian monarchs.

White or albino elephants have long symbolized wealth and power in countries like Cambodia, Burma, Laos and Thailand (formerly Siam), and have consequently been kept by monarchs for hundreds of years. The name of the Burmese King Hsinbyushin, who ruled from 1763 to 1776, even meant “Lord of the White Elephant.”

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, unfounded stories began spreading through England as early as the 1600s that the king of Siam, in particular, would give white elephants to members of his court who displeased him. The sacred animal could not be killed, given away or put to work, so its enormous upkeep would drain the owner of money.

The figurative use of a “white elephant” entered the lexicon in the 1800s, denoting an expensive, impractical object or endeavor. Consequently, the white elephant gift exchange became a means of either getting rid of unwanted knickknacks or gifting ridiculous, humorous presents.

Tchaikovsky’s favorite decor

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 story, is a Christmas staple across the globe, and many follow the protagonist Clara’s lead by adorning the house with weird little wooden men every Christmas.

Nutcrackers in the shape of soldiers, kings and knights have likely existed since at least the 15th century and became especially popular in the Bavarian Alps in the 19th century. Before there were mass-produced chocolate Santas with which to fill kids’ stockings, nuts were a traditional Christmas treat, so nutcrackers were naturally associated with the holiday season. As it was already common to display ornate metal nutcrackers when serving nuts at a party, gifting the unique wooden sculptures to be used at Christmas was a logical next step.

As pre-shelled nuts became more common — especially in America — functional nutcrackers gradually gave way to the decorative ones common today. According to an article on plateonline.com, these wooden dolls rose in popularity in the U.S. after World War II, since U.S. soldiers were introduced to them while stationed in Europe. They became even more readily available as traditional German manufacturers living under Soviet rule mass-produced cheap, lower-quality versions to export to the U.S.

Massive socks. Absolutely huge.

Christmas stockings are often elaborately embroidered and embellished nowadays, making it easy to forget that, as they say in The Nightmare Before Christmas, they’re just “oversized socks.” The exact origins of the tradition are unknown and often debated by historians, with many anachronistic stories invented to justify the practice.

The most probable origin comes from a popular miracle story attributed to Saint Nicholas, who was one of the most widely venerated saints of the Middle Ages, though nothing concrete is known about his life. In a version of the myth recorded in The World Encyclopedia of Christmas, Nicholas learns of three daughters who are fated to become sex workers to support their impoverished family. To save the women, Nicholas hides three portions of gold — either bags or golden balls — in their house to serve as their dowries. In some versions of the story, he slips the gold into stockings hanging above the fire to dry, hence the tradition of presents in socks.

Interestingly, Nicholas is also known as the patron saint of pawnbrokers, which is why moneylenders use three gold balls to symbolize their business. 

Whether coins or spheres, I’ve been hanging up socks for 24 years, and I’ve yet to receive any gold. Perhaps this is one holiday tradition that’s gotten worse with age.