Gift Exchange

Merry Christmas to you all!

So, another Christmas comes and I hold my second Christmas party in Taiwan, with a good turnout of close friends. And, again for the second time, we have a little gift exchange.

I think everyone pretty much follows the white elephant gift exchange rules, but somehow, everyone has little variances. I set the price limit to $200NT ($6US), and everyone had to wrap it in plain white paper -- like the backside of office paper, or whatever -- to avoid clues based on wrapping paper patterns.

I remember back in Vancouver, we'd have a gift exchange and over the years, it grew to some 20+ people. Tons of fun! The price limit was something like $10/$15CAD, plus tax. But the first 15 minutes was always arguing about the rules of the game:

How many times can a gift be stolen in a round? In total?
When do you open the gifts: as you choose it, or all at the end?

And there was always one or two people who would want to add another exciting dimension to the game, hoping to liven it up a bit, by introducing some kind of rule that pretty much required everyone present to have a masters degree in mathematics.

So you. What rules do you generally follow when you do a gift exchange? Or do you just do a Secret Santa kind of thing?