One of the fond images we have of the holiday season is that of friends or family gathering together under the same roof, exchanging gifts, a little banter, and maybe some pie. But as we get older, we move out and away, and aren't close enough to our families or our friends to always get together. Albinophant, a new Facebook application, seeks to return at least a little of the fun that you might get during a White Elephant exchange of gifts. But you will have to provide your own pie.

For anyone who's ever been to a white elephant exchange, this is going to be pretty familiar territory. For those of you who haven't, the rules work like this. Everyone brings a gift in a certain price range, wrapped, but with no specific To: tags on it. You put them in a pile, and gather around. Then you sit around and draw names out of a hat. The first person to be picked chooses a gift and unwraps it. Everyone oohs and ahs, and you draw the next name. The next person can do one of two things. They can pick a new present out of the pile, OR they can swipe the present of anyone who has gone before them. If they swipe a gift, the first person chooses a new present and immediately unwraps it – that's their new present, and the swiper keeps the original one. As each person picks or swipes a gift, eventually you get to the point where all the gifts have been picked, and people kid each other for a while, and everyone goes home, having had a fun time.

Now, there's one limit on swiping – a gift can only be swiped a total of two times (the three touch rule - 1st person opens it, 2nd person swipes it, 3rd person keeps it). And in practice, there's always that one person who brings a can of spinach no matter what the price range was. (There was one episode of The Office where the price limit was 15.00 or so, and Michael brought an iPod, too, so that goes both ways.)

Now, that's easy to do when you've got family and friends living close together. When the family is spread apart, it can be done... but it quickly becomes a logistical nightmare. That's where Albinophant steps in.

The first thing an Albinophant host does is to set a price limit – anywhere from $15.00 - $50.00, in $5.00 increments. Then they invite a bunch of their Facebook friends to participate. The invitees RSVP, and have some time (depending on the party, this can happen over hours or a few days) to pick a gift. The gift giving is handled in the application by Albinophant, which presents a range of available presents based on that price range using Amazon.com. Once a participant has picked a gift, they enter their own shipping information, and are sent to Paypal, where they pay the flat fee. This allows for a couple of things – the people participating have an easy way to shop, your budget is immediately apparent, and you have a wide range of gifts to choose from – automatically tailored to the budget the host set. (This saves you from the can of spinach problem discussed above).

Once everyone has bought a gift, (or the host deems an appropriate amount of time has gone by,) the host kicks off the party, and the game begins. The party members get e-mails when it's their turn, when someone else has gone, and they can participate in an ongoing chat associated with the party. Albinophant also allows people to rank the gift they received, and awards a “winner” at the end based on how well the gifts were rated, and their level of participation.

When the party is over, Amazon ships the presents to the people who “won” them, and a few days later a delivery truck shows up at the house with your gift.

It strikes me that this would be an ideal thing for my family, with my parents and two sisters in Idaho, a brother in Utah, me in Texas, and another brother in Iraq. Over the course of a couple of days, we can buy presents, participate in a fun activity together, and it gives us an excuse to stay in touch – which every family occasionally needs.

And family isn't the only group that this would work for – I have a lot of great people that I've met through writing and podcasting, and something like this seems like it would be perfect for connecting with them, and exchanging some gifts, and having fun at this time of the year.

Albinophant requires no fees, just a Facebook membership. They have a privacy policy that seems pretty normal for Facebook apps, and the app flows pretty well. The shopping part is fun, as you browse for gifts that maybe you wouldn't see or wouldn't consider in other circumstances.

All in all, I think this is a great service, and I'll be telling my friends about this both in person and online.

Check out Albinophant on Facebook.