"World's largest source of natural gas"
See the title of this posting? That's what was printed on the back of the size 500 pair of not-so-tighty-whities that were my prize in this particularly hilarious christmas parlour game (along with one of those nifty tap-light thingies...both of which have been sitting in my back seat since christmas, a happy welcome to anyone lucky enough to sit on either of them). The game is called secret Santa, and if you know a relatively loose and jovial family (i.e. my girlfriend's neighbors), this christmas game can be pretty entertaining. The only prerequesite is that you bring a "gag gift" of your own creation or choice...and a little spiked egg nog swishing around in your belly doesn't hurt.

Numbers 1 to X (x being the number of gift-bringers and willing participants) are written on slips of paper, swished around and picked out of a hat. Basically, the higher your number, the better chance you have of NOT walking away with what is obviously (through its tight wrapping) a bananna and two oranges taped together in a suggestive way...or said pair of tighty whities, or anything on par with that level of gaggitry. He who chooses poorly and gets number one is basically stuck with whatever gift he first chooses, for the meantime; Anyone with a higher number than him can choose to trade their gift for his, as well. So the lower your number, the more people can decide to exchange their decapitated malibu stacey for your not-so-disturbing peanut-butter-covered pencil shavings. The ladder goes all the way up to the person with the highest number (the position I enjoyed during the game we played...but still somehow ended up walking away with a huge pair of underwear that have somehow doubled as a bumper sticker for the past couple months). That person has no gift choice, because he automatically gets the last gift on the table (in my case, the banana/orange combination), but gets to trade that gift with that of whomever else he chooses...which can be an awkward choice when the person with the tap light and underwear is about 60-something years old.

The game evokes lots of laughter, and strangely embodies the spirit of christmas more than most holidy-oriented activities that i've participated in. And under Salen's and Zimmerman's definition of play (free movement within a more rigid structure), it is a rather open-ended form of play. Rules are adhered to, but as with any game played whilst intoxicated and in a really really good christmas mood, the rules kind of take a back-seat to hilarious situational elements of play...for instance, if it means that the 14-year-old-kid has to break the rules to give the 50-year-old man a sexually suggestive paper-mache mock-up, then so be it. In the ludic sense, then this is a pretty accurate demonstration of testing the actual imposed limits or rules of a particular game. The game, with its pan-age appeal, has this very surprising solidarity-building element that brings together all of the ages at the christmas party, in a much more mature way. In this respect, the transformative elements of the game affect all, but they seemed to have a more visible effect in the younger children participating; After the game was over, the kids were alot more forewardly social with their elders, and any shyness that existed before had been completely melted by the awkwardly hilarious heat of the game. At least for that evening, it melted ice throughout the whole house, and to all its inhabitants. In retrospect, that seems to be the whole idea behind Christmas...huh...time to do something about that pair of underwear in my car.