Dice Tradition

Every year a group of us get together for a holiday party/pot luck supper/dice game. I am requested to bring wild rice hot dish. And we all bring five $1 gifts that are wrapped. After dinner, we sit in a circle with a pile of wrapped gifts in the center and roll the dice until we get two of the same number. If we do roll doubles, we get to select a wrapped gift from the center pile. We continue doing this until each person has five gifts. Once everyone has five gifts, we unwrap the gifts and throw the wrapping paper at each other. Then we go around the circle displaying and talking about our gifts. The greediness comes out in each of us as we plan to steal the gifts we want from each other. This year, after much discussion, we decided to set the time limit for 12 more minutes. Twelve was the right number this year because we all had high anxiety around minute nine last year and we thought 3 more minutes would help us out. So for 12 more minutes we rolled dice and if we got doubles, would be able to exchange a gift from anyone at the table, even if they said, "No." All of these gifts are worth one dollar but their value varied enormously. Some people covet chocolate. Others covet jangly earrings, and others covet licorice bits. As I shopped for my five one dollar gifts at the dollar store, I tried to imagine what gifts would be most sought after. I was wrong. I bought some glow sticks that I thought would be popular but other people bought those too. I bought a gray scarf with round silver studs. I thought that would go over well. It was gray and would go with any outfit and would keep a body warm. Nobody wanted it. In the light outside the dollar store, it was light blue and very unpopular. The scarf I thought would be so coveted was offered to be given away without an exchange. Ouch. The bath salts that I thought only an old lady with dry skin like me would want was more popular than I anticipated. I still got one though because I got doubles and stole them back twice. The dice game is very greedy and materialistic but fun all the same. I ended up with my bath salts, a glow stick, two stationary sets (which weren't stationary sets at all but journals with a matching pen), and a black velvet poster of a tiger and a monkey. Good times, good times.