'AITA for calling someone out of their white-elephant gift, that was significantly under the spending criteria?'

"AITA for calling someone out of their white-elephant gift, that was significantly under the spending criteria?"

A social group that I'm a part of held a white-elephant gift exchange last night. Participation was by absolutely no means mandatory or even expected. The event was divided up between two pricing tiers; under $25 - $50 and $75 - $100.]

The majority of members went with the less expensive tier for obvious reasons, and there's absolutely no stigmata within our circle for doing so. In fact only 9 out of our nearly forty members chose the more expensive tier, myself included.

Well I was picked to go 3rd and I selected a gift that was wrapped quite beautifully, thinking that was a good sign, but I was disappointed to discover the gift was a hot chocolate set that certainly wouldn't have met the criteria of the lower range, let alone the one we were participating in.

I could tell the others in the group felt roughly the same just by the looks on their face, and my focus was directed to one woman (Jen) who was looking away, clearly embarrassed. As you might imagine, no one took my gift.

Now I know its petty not to be happy with what you're given, but let's be honest here in saying that Jen was throwing in the sort of thing you'd find on clearance at Walmart knowing full well she'd walk away with something pricey in turn. In this case, Jen wound up with brand new Keurig.

I discretely pulled our social group's leader aside and mentioned my concern to her. She expressed she wasn't happy with this herself and that she'd even tried to tell Jen not to participate with the more expensive tier because it was well known that Jen wasn't doing great financially, but Jen had sworn up and down that it wouldn't be an issue.

We didn't want to disrupt events, so I was asked to put on a kind face and to avoid talking about the gift for the remainder of the evening, which I accepted as people were trying to have fun.

This morning I received a long winded text chain from Jen, expressing how frustrated she was that I'd demeaned her by complaining about her gift. She went on and on about how nice it must be that I can simply throw my money away while others, like her, are struggling, and that her income shouldn't mean she can't have nice things.

Instead of fighting, I forwarded the texts to our group leader, and I've since received word that Jen would no longer be a member of our social group.

Now, if I'm being honest, I do genuinely feel bad because I know how happy being a member of this group made Jen. She has had a lot of setbacks in her life. I do not hate her or hold any negative feelings for her at all. I simply felt she was knowingly taking advantage of the rest of us to basically trade up beyond her means. AITA?

Let's see what readers thought:

lindonspbal writes:

NTA. Jen wanted a pricey gift without having to spend the money to get one for others. Some people call this manipulation, but I just call it stealing.

If you agree to exchange gifts based on price and do not hold up your end of the bargain, it is stealing from others. The group leader should not have waited until you got an irate text. They should have been proactive and instructed you to pick another gift when they saw what it was and pulled Jane from participating.

car09 writes:

This is how it's supposed to be done. A "White Elephant" swap is based on silly, weird, non-useful things that nobody should want, but it turns into something fun.

The idea comes from story of a king in India who would gift someone he didn't like with a rare white elephant. Elephants were working animals who earned their keep by being useful, but white elephants were revered and never used for work.

This meant that keeping the animal would cost the recipient a lot because they would have to take care of it with the best feed and luxury lodging and never make it earn its keep.

Nobody wanted a white elephant. It was a sign that the king didn't think a whole lot of you, or wanted to punish you without making it look like he was punishing you.

So a White Elephant swap is meant for silly, worthless or fun items. I don't understand these expensive, high-value gifts. If there was a minimum of something like $50, I wouldn't participate.

ESH. Who the f is a member of a social group with a "leader?" Who actually cares about a white elephant gift? The entire point is that they suck and it is fun. And who tries to "trade up" a gift at a white elephant party, other than trading on item of crap for a more interesting item of crap?

And who separates their friends into "classes" by having different tiers for gifts? And who spends $75 bucks on a white elephant gift and doesn't expect to get hosed? If you want something nice, buy something nice. Whole thing screams wealthy white people suburb clique bs with a poor person that found their way into the mix. Find something worthwhile to fume about.

baldn writes:

ESH Do we know she was actually the one who gave the gift? Just feels like a word way to exclude co workers from doing the exchange. Feels like if 75% of the group is doing cheap gifts, you do cheap gifts. Either way, it was silly to think setting pricing tiers wouldn't cause a headache.