Here's a new game I just invented that you can play this holiday season, or anytime. All you need is a web browser and an Amazon.com account. It's part gift economy critique, part Oulipian writing.

How to play:

1. Go to the Amazon.com Wishlist page. Under "Find a wishlist," enter a name. Any name will do, forename or surname, and it's better if it's not someone you know.
2. Browse the search results for a wishlist that actually has items in it (a lot of people don't add to their wishlist).
3. Based solely on the contents of the wishlist, write a story, poem, or other composition about the list's owner. Your composition must be 240 characters or less (you'll see why in a minute).
4. (Optional, but highly recommended) Buy one of the items on the wishlist for its owner. When you check out, check the "gift message" checkbox and then add the composition created in step (3) as the gift message (which, lo and behold, is limited to 240 characters).

That's it. You can then consider the necessity or benefit of market exchange, the impossibility of the gift, or explore other constrained writing practices. To constrain yourself more, make your composition exactly 240 characters, no less no more. You could also get together with a group and create a distributed narrative across multiple items in a list, or multiple wishlist owners in a family (uncommon surnames are especially useful for this variant).