Can admin force us to do this?

I am an elementary teacher in a private school for kids with learning differences. At the very end of the year my principal thinks it's a good idea that all of the teachers participate in a gift exchange. We are asked to bring in three gifts that are wrapped, and that we spend $10 per gift. We all get together and put our gifts out on a table and you have to choose three different ones. I won't bore you with the specifics of how you get picked and who opens what but let's just say it's incredibly lengthy and time consuming. Not to mention we do this activity outside and I live in the south so we're all literally sweaty, hot and cranky. I put a lot of thought into the gifts that I picked out and I definitely spent more than the $10. When it was my turn to pick my gifts I got a bag of gourmet popcorn, and some random crap from the dollar store. (a box of M&Ms, popcorn kernels, and one of those red and white plastic popcorn bins at the Dollar Tree sells). One teacher wrapped up those small bottles of wine that are less than five dollars a bottle.

I find this pointless exercise to be incredibly aggravating especially when we are all busy with end-of-the-year stuff. I also don't like the fact that people purposely don't even try to hit the $10 mark and you wind up leaving with a bunch of crap you don't want or need. It's only January but I'm already annoyed by thinking about this irritating team-building experience that I'm going to be forced to do in June. 😂

Do you think there is a diplomatic way to bring this up as a topic of conversation maybe when we're having a meeting and say we don't want to do it? Maybe I'm a I'm the only grouchy one that really dislikes it but, I can't imagine I'm alone. And I guess the bigger question is, can I be forced to participate in this activity or can I simply say I don't want to? Does anyone else have to do ridiculous activities like this?