How often do your unwanted Christmas and birthday gifts get regifted?
I should have voted never instead of rarely. I was thinking of the time I gave my daughter the sweaters I was given that were too small but they weren’t really “regifted”. I just gave them to her after I tried them on but I didn’t pass them off as gifts so much as, “Here, take these and see if they fit you.”
I’m a big fan of regifting. It’s green and money-saving. Is it better I should just put something in a closet and never touch it again, when I need a gift for that person over there? And I am thrilled to receive gifts…it’s so nice that someone thought of me and spared me a trip to the store!
Of course, I am very, very careful not to let anyone know that I’m giving their gift away. I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings for the world.
It depends, I will not regift to someone a shitty gift given to me, (cue my SIL who gave me her regifted orange plaid dearfoam slippers, when I gave her white sheepskin clogs). Those plaid slippers i gave away to goodwill, should have gifted them back to her the next year. :smack:
I don’t have a problem with regifting (giving or receiving) as long as the quality of the gift is there. At work, a couple of my co-workers gave out candy to everyone. One was milk chocolate, the other was peppermint bark–neither of which I eat. Both were high quality candy, nicely packaged, and I stuck them in the stocking of Hallgirl, as her boyfriend will eat anything with sugar.
If I receive something that’s cheapy made, in poor condition or is simply ugly beyond belief, it goes in the trash, or is donated. (Just because it’s ugly to me, doesn’t mean that someone won’t like it.)
I only did it once. I was going to a wedding for a close friend and asked my mom for gift suggestions. She said a $50 gift card to Bed Bath and Beyond or Target would be appropriate. I then asked her if she cared if I gave my friend the card she (my mom) gave me a few months earlier. She didn’t care. She saw it the same way I did in that there was no reason for me to drive all the way up to Bed Bath and Beyond to spend $50 on a gift card when I already had one…and since I’ll spend the $50 there over the next few months anyways whether I have the gift card or not it’s sort of a wash.
I re-gift all the time, and I don’t care if people do it to me. Like others have said, a gift sitting in my closet gathering dust isn’t doing anyone any good. We received a bottle of red wine Christmas Eve - it would have sat in our house forever, since we hardly drink, and it’s never wine, so I re-gifted it to my sister on Boxing Day. Since she’s my sister, I told her it was a re-gift, and she said she’d probably re-gift it, too, since she prefers white wine to red. No harm, no foul, and it will eventually end up with someone who enjoys it.
I never wrap anything back up and give it as a gift, no. But I do frequently say, “Oh, you like that? Take it home with you.”
I would never regift anything with sentimental value. But a random bottle of wine or box of candy that someone else might actually appreciate? Sure, why not?
Every time I can think of someone who would like it better. Or someone I am annoyed with who would dislike it even more.
Practical items get donated. Impersonal neutral items I don’t care for get immediately put in a re-gift pile; I like to regift them the same season; I have re-gifted immediately after opening (“oh, that’s beautiful” “Would you like it? It’s not my color”); I once re-gifted something back to the recipient immediately. This year I re-gifted something before it was given to me.
I’m fine with regifting.