Dryer Balls After Christmas - White Elephant

“Families are like fudge — mostly sweet, with a few nuts,” Les Dawson once said. And if he’d been at my wife’s cousin’s house on Christmas Eve — packed in with twenty relatives, one brilliant 10‑year‑old running the show, and a white elephant gift exchange that could have qualified as a competitive sport — he might have added, “…and sometimes the nuts are the ones holding the dryer balls.” I ended up with the dryer balls. I will explain later.
Christmas Eve at my wife’s cousin’s house is a tradition — a loud, warm, slightly chaotic tradition that feels like stepping into a holiday movie where everyone talks at once and the kitchen never stops producing food. It’s the kind of gathering where coats get piled on a bed, kids’ shoes mysteriously migrate to the wrong feet, and someone always brings a dessert that looks like it was made by a committee.

There are about twenty of us in total, and only one child — a 10‑year‑old girl who is smart as a whip and has the organizational instincts of a seasoned cruise director. Naturally, she takes charge of the white elephant gift exchange. No one questions her authority. No one volunteers to help. She is the commander of ceremonies, clipboard in hand, ready to enforce the rules with the precision of a federal auditor.

After Christmas Eve dinner — a glorious spread of ham, casseroles, rolls, and at least one dish whose origin story remains a mystery — our young emcee announces that it’s time for the white elephant. She passes around a hat filled with numbers, one for each of the twenty participants. This is the classic version of the game: draw a number, pick a gift, open it, and then brace yourself for the possibility that someone will “steal” it from you with the gleeful ruthlessness of a pirate boarding a merchant ship.
The gifts — all wrapped in brown paper bags — sit in the center of the room like a suspicious pile of evidence. No bows. No ribbons. Just mystery, anticipation, and the faint aroma of Christmas dinner drifting in from the kitchen.
“Number one!” she calls out, with the authority of someone who has been waiting all year for this moment.

And the game begins.
One by one, people step forward, choose a bag, and reveal their fate. Some gifts are thoughtful. Some are bizarre. Some are the kind of thing you buy because the spending limit was raised from $25 to $30 and you felt morally obligated to use every penny.
My wife, blessed by the holiday spirits, ends up with two NCIS‑themed coffee mugs — one covered in all 99 of Gibbs’ Rules, the other filled with Ziva‑isms. She beams like she’s just won a sweepstakes. People admire them. People consider stealing them. People hover. But she holds onto them with the quiet determination of someone who has already mentally assigned them a place in the kitchen cabinet.

Another family member unwraps a set of Apple AirTags — a gift so unexpectedly useful that the room collectively inhales. You can practically hear the gears turning in people’s heads: I could put one on my keys… my luggage… my spouse… The AirTags become the hot commodity of the night, stolen and re‑stolen until they hit the maximum number of allowed steals and are locked down like a national treasure.
And then… there’s me.

When my number is called, I step forward with optimism. Hope. A belief — however naïve — that this might be my year.
I reach into the pile, grab a bag, and open it.
Inside?
Six dryer balls.
Not neon green. Not tennis‑ball yellow. No, these were gray — six perfectly round, perfectly dull, perfectly practical gray spheres. They looked like something a minimalist decorator would put in a bowl and call “a statement.”
I hold them up. 
The room goes silent.
Someone says, “Oh! Those are… practical.”

Practical. The death sentence of white elephant gifts.

Now, normally, this is the moment when someone swoops in to “steal” your gift — not because they want it, but because they want to rescue you from the humiliation of going home with it. But not this year. This year, everyone suddenly becomes deeply committed to the sanctity of the rules.
“No, no, I wouldn’t steal those from you.”
“You look like you could use them.”
“They’re perfect for you!”

Perfect. For me. Apparently, I give off the vibe of a man who dreams of optimized laundry cycles.

Meanwhile, the AirTags are being stolen like they’re made of gold. The NCIS mugs are being admired like museum pieces. Someone else unwraps a novelty kitchen gadget that sparks a minor bidding war. But me? I’m standing there holding six gray spheres that look like they escaped from a lunar landing simulation.
Even the dog looks disappointed.

But I accept my fate. I am now the proud owner of six laundry‑freshening gray dryer balls.
And honestly? I’ve decided to embrace it. If nothing else, I will have the freshest‑smelling briefs in the tri‑county area. I will stride into the new year with confidence, knowing that my underwear carries the faint aroma of lavender‑infused triumph. I will be a man whose laundry is not merely clean, but spiritually uplifted.

And next Christmas Eve? Oh, I’m coming prepared. I will bring a gift so irresistible, so dazzling, so undeniably steal‑worthy that people will fight over it like seagulls over a french fry. Something bold. Something flashy. Something that screams, “This is the gift of a man who once received gray dryer balls and vowed never again.”
But until then, I’ll be over here, tossing my gray spheres into the dryer like a man who has accepted his destiny.

Because families are like fudge — mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
And sometimes the nut… is the one holding the gray dryer balls.

I look forward to White Elephant next year.