Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Instead of scrambling to check off every family member, neighbour and co-worker off your Christmas shopping list, some people are opting for a more unusual approach to gift giving that ensures no one goes home empty handed.
"White elephant," also known as "Dirty Santa" or "Yankee Swap," is the gift-exchange game that brings added suspense to a holiday party where guests don't know what the gift is until the last minute, who they got a gift from and how long they have with the gift.
In order to play, all participants will be asked to bring a gift to their holiday gathering. Then everyone will need to draw numbers to determine the order of people choosing their gift. Once the first person chooses from the gift pile and opens the present in front of everyone, the following players will have the option to choose a new wrapped gift from the pile or steal a present from a previous person. If a gift is stolen, the person who it was stolen from can choose a new gift or steal from someone else. A present can only be stolen once per turn, and each turn ends after three steals or a person chooses a wrapped gift.
"It's really not about what the gift is. I think it's all about fun, it's about coming together, it's about poking fun at each other and surprising one another, which is the best part," TV host and lifestyle expert Brigitte Truong told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Truong says this game can be played in any type of holiday gathering, whether it's with family, friends, co-workers; as long as it's a group larger than four people to extend the game for as long as possible.
"This is a great way to bond again and to break the ice or to meet new family members," Truong said. "The bigger the crowd the better but this is perfect for any type of reunion."
Real white elephants are pale coloured Asian elephants that are considered sacred in countries like India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, according to the Baanchang Elephant Park's website. But while the animal is highly revered, the term “white elephant” has come to mean something that is considered more trouble than it’s worth.
To avoid any similar let downs throughout the gift exchange, Truong recommends setting up rules beforehand.
"If we create a theme or a budget that everyone agrees upon, it eliminates any disappointment or jealousy," she said.
Truong says by creating a budget that every participant deems fair will avoid any awkward tension of someone getting a present of higher value or have everyone fighting over that one luxury gift.
As for the types of gifts to buy, Truong recommends generalized gifts that the majority of people would want or can use. Additionally, thrifting gifts can also help with having to worry about the costs of the gift as many Canadians look for more affordable ways to celebrate the holidays this year.
"Everyone's kind of watching their spending and understandably so. So, gifts like this, when you kind of set parameters in place and everyone agrees upon them, there's no confusion or competitions, it's more of a way to show up for each other and to have a good time," she said.
The rules of the game have been corrected to say players can choose to steal or pick a wrapped gift, not an unwrapped gift.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.