The beef stick is for your wife!

Background:
My extended family does a gift exchange that some call a "White Elephant" and others refer to as a
"Dirty Santa."  Personally, I don't think that either of those terms really capture the essence of
the situation.  Everyone buys a reasonably nice gift in the $20 range ($15-$25).  Those presents go
into a big pile in the middle of a not so big room.  Each person who brought a gift chooses a number
from a hat and then the fun begins.  Whoever chose number 1 chooses a gift from the middle and opens
it.  Yippee.  This gift is awesome.  Now, person number 2 gets to either take a present from the
middle pile or, if they're feeling especially good about person number 1's present, they can take
it, at which point person number one must choose another gift.  Once person numbers 1 and 2 both
have gifts, it's person number 3s turn.  As it goes around, each person can take any present that
hasn't already been "stolen" 3 times or take a gift from the middle.  When everyone has a gift,
number 1 gets to trade their gift with anyone in the circle (or, more aptly, anyone who has a gift
that hasn't been "frozen" by being stolen three times).  When that's done, we exchange gifts with my
grandmother and the young kids, but don't really get anything else for each other.  It makes
Christmas a much more economically manageable time.

The leadup:
A number of years ago, my cousin's husband David (I refuse to claim him as any kind of kin) decided
he wanted to be "funny."  Actually, he got mad because the year before he got a gift he didn't like.
My father chose the gift that David brought and when he opened it, he was instantly inundated with
the joys of a Billy Big Mouth.  I don't know if you have these things where you from, but basically
it's supposed to be a fish that's mounted on a plaque and the fish sings and dances.  It's abysmally
stupid and about the only place I can think I might see one is on a shelf in a redneck souvenir
shop... or on Grumman's wall, but that's a different story.  Anyway, if what we did was actually a
white elephant gift exchange, it would have been a perfect gift.  Since what we do isn't, it wasn't.
Anyway, that night was the beginning of what I refer to as "the fear of the fish".  Every year, the
fish would re-emerge as part of someone else's gift.  It's taken many different guises and there
have been many tricks involved in an attempt to get it back to David.  Each year, he finds a way to
keep from getting it.  So far, there have been two exceptions.

Two years ago, I had number 1.  My wife opened the fish (which had some other gift attached to it).
When someone stole my present, I took the fish.  Nobody could believe it.  They were all like "What
was he thinking?"  well, when everyone had finished opening their presents it became obvious what I
was thinking because I traded the fish to David.  I didn't even care what he had, as long as he got
the fish.  He was pretty pissed.

Last year, I was somehow unlucky enough to open the fish again (and no luck being number 1).  Well,
this year, I gave a set of poker chips as my exchange gift.  I taped a bag outside the locked chip
case with a poem that I wrote basically saying that there was more to the gift but that the rest
wouldn't be revealed until the exchange was over.  Obviously, everyone thought that it was the fish.
When the exchange was over, I gave the person who got the chips the key to the cae and they opened
it to reveal another poem that said that it wasn't the fish but not to worry, the fish would make
another appearance.

Later that evening, as we were opening gifts from grandma, David opened what he had guessed would be
a blanket only to find the hideousness that is Billy Big Mouth.  Everyone got a kick out of it and
David once again went home pissed off.

Sometimes, it's the little things that matter most.

You're a little too late.  The story is already posted for the enjoyment of everyone.