Every year, I have to attend a Pollyanna (like White Elephant) gift exchange at my significant other’s family’s house for Christmas Eve. It’s always a stressful time, and it’s almost impossible to put together a gift bag that will please everyone in attendance.

Since I was running out of ideas, and only had one item in mind so far, I decided to see if an AI Chat Bot from Google, Bard, could help me with the task.

My initial idea was to purchase a box of foreign potato chips, and then try and build my gift around that.

Here’s some example prompts I used with Bard

1. “What would be a good Secret Santa gift basket that includes different potato chips”
2. “I need to make a gift basket that features potato chips. What should I include?”
3. “I need to make a Secret Santa gift basket. What would go well with different potato chips?”

I took bits and pieces from each suggestion, and created my unique Potato Lovers themed gift for our gift exchange.

Summarized Suggestions from Bard

• Other goodies: Candy bars or chocolate to balance the salty flavors
  • A fun potato chip-shaped mug
  • A potato chip-themed cookbook
• Gourmet dips and spreads: Pair chips with different dips and spreads (roasted garlic hummus, fig and olive tapenade)
• Personalize the basket: Add a handwritten note, a small gift relevant to the recipient’s interests, or a potato chip-themed item (mug, keychain).
• Remember: Choose chips with diverse flavors and textures, and personalize the basket for a truly impressive gift.
• Extras: Mini globe, map with pins marking chip origins, travel guide
• Bonus: Include a small potato masher or potato chip clip to enhance the potato chip theme

Some of those items really sparked my creativity, especially the “potato chip clip.” So, I did some Google-ing and found some fun “accessories” that were potato themed.

My Gift Creation

Box of Mystery Potato Chips – Amazon Link

Potato Chip Clips – Amazon Link

Baked Potato Bag – Amazon Link

Snactiv Finger Chopsticks – Amazon Link

I even decided to create a little mascot of my gift, who I affectionately named Po.

I figured I needed to add something a little less silly for my gift, so I picked up a $25 gift card to Panera and had Po the Tato hold on to it for maximum cuteness and fun!

And with that, and some creative wrapping, my Pollyanna/White Elephant gift came to life, thanks to a little help from AI!

It was a lot of fun using Bard to get some ideas, and I’ll definitely be using it again next year, and maybe later down the line in the year for other holidays like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Let’s see what it can come up with next!

Happy gifting and happy GPT-ing!

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