I regift something every year. In fact, I recently received a gift card to Olive Garden as a thank-you for some work-related notary service I performed, and I have already decided to use it as a Christmas present for someone else. I say as long as you’re careful not to hurt the original giver, regifting rocks! What say you?
Regifting can be fine, as long as the gift isn’t hand-made or personalized.
My mom’s a sixth grade teacher, and every year recieves lots of very nice things she has absolutely no use for (as well as a whole lot of crap). Doesn’t help that she’s asthmatic and scents trigger her - so all the scented candles and bodywash and lotion and perfume and all that is actually dangerous for her. She sorts the pile and gives everything she can’t use to me, and I gift it to the people on my list who would actually like it and use it.
It’s that or the trash, so I don’t see a problem with it.
Another one who thinks regifting rocks! When I receive a gift that was obviously bought generically and the giver wasn’t thinking of my likes, I feel no guilt in giving it to someone who does like it. For example, last year I got a big box of dark chocolate. Yuck. One of my dark chocolate loving friends was very happy! And my SO got a sports trivia calendar - neither of us are into sports in the least. So I gave it, packaging unopened, to my coworker who loves spectator sports and trivia. I feel I made everyone happy.
IMHO, regifting is OK, as long as:
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You haven’t used the gift. At all. It should still be new.
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The gift isn’t obviously a re-gift. If there’s an inscription that says “To Dung Beetle, with fuzzy-wuzzies, from your great aunt Melba,” then it’s not re-giftable. Especially if Great Aunt Melba has really lousy taste.
2a) The gift hasn’t been sitting around in your basement or something forever, such that it’s obvious that it’s been sitting around in your basement forever. People are remarkably good at misjudging the relative new-ness of things that have been sitting around for a while. If you have any doubts, don’t re-gift.
- It doesn’t somehow get back to the original giver that their present was re-gifted. (That’s the most important criterion.)
The Olive Garden gift card thing is a perfect thing to re-gift. No-one has any idea of whether or not you used the card you’d gotten, yourself! Maybe you thought that was such a good present that, after you’d enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Olive Garden, you decided to get a gift card for someone else.
Motive is also important here. Why don’t you want it? If you think it is crap, what do you give other people crap? (Myself, I would include an Olive Garden or any chain rest. gift card crap.)
Under the same rule of thumb, if you are merely passing something on because you need to give someone something and it’s just lying there, that is also rude and uncaring. Gifts come from the heart and need to be personal. Otherwise may as well give them cash (or nothing).
If for some reason it’s wasn’t a suitable gift to you, then pass it on. The above example of scented items when you are scent sensitive is excellent grounds.
I’m all about re-gifting under the circumstances outlined above, but I usually:
a) don’t re-gift for an actual occasion (like Christmas or a birthday), unless the item I’m re-gifting is just part of a collection of items I’m giving, and
b) 'fess up that it’s a re-gift, which maybe means that it’s not actually a gift at all, since it’s usually not for any occasion; I would just give it to you and say, "Hey, do you want this pine-cone-and-buffalo-scented body lotion? I got it as a birthday gift and I’ll never use it, but it was too expensive to go to waste . . . "
And hey - one person’s crap is another’s craving, so I usually get a taker.
Yeah, but lots of other people don’t consider a dinner at the Olive Garden to be crap. So, if someone gives you an Olive Garden gift card, and you think someone else would like it, why not re-gift?
I see what you’re saying, ftg, and I think you’re probably a very warm and caring person. Much warmer and more caring than I am, honestly.
It seems to me that gifts don’t always need to be personal, or come from the heart. Gifts need to be gifts. Yes, in the best of all possible worlds, all gifts would be tokens of deeply-felt affection between two kindred spirits. But, in this world, there’s plenty of obligatory gift-giving. Who hasn’t had to give a present to an obnoxious in-law at Christmas, or a toy to a total brat on his or her birthday? Or, for that matter, lots of us have given gifts to people we barely know through the company gift exchange, or have had to give presents to clients we dislike, to teachers we hated, or to bosses we’re hoping get canned.
Besides, there’s a big difference between being rude and being uncaring. How you feel is not, in and of itself, polite or impolite. It’s the outward act that counts, as far as whether or not you’re polite is concerned. Showing that you definitely don’t care two cents for someone else’s happiness or well-being is, yes, rude. But, as long as you are basically cordial and civil to others, you’re being polite, regardless of your true feelings or your motivation for acting according to the norms of an at least semi-civilized society.
When you give a gift to someone you don’t know or like all that well, you can give a gift that’s not got a lot of thought or affection behind it. Some basic consideration is required, of course; it is sort of rude to give a box of chocolates to someone who everyone knows is allergic to cacao, for example. But, for the most part, as long as you don’t point out that you don’t really care all that much, you’re being polite.
I didn’t mean to include the “sort of” in the sentence above. Giving a box of chocolates to someone who you know will break out in hives if he or she eats them is rude, no question.
‘gift card crap’? ‘Any chain restaurant’? I’m not sure I agree with categorically excluding all chain restaurants just because they’re a chain. What if you knew a couple that absolutely loved this particular chain? What if you gave a young couple a gift of dinner at the local Olive Garden, and agreed to take care of their new kid for the night. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want your offer of a dinner because it’s not for an appropriately expensive enough restaurant!”
Aren’t there really two types of re-gifting? One where you pass off the gift because it’s nice and you find an appropriate person who will enjoy/appreciate receiving it; and two, the type of re-gift where you let the person know it’s a re-gift. As in, "I received this, and I really can’t use it, but it seems like something you might like. In other words, like ftg said… motive is a factor.
Impersonal gifts may be regifted. :o
As a member of an aforementioned young couple (although we don’t have kids, we’re just independently poor), I would be glad to take any unwanted Olive Garden gift cards. Same goes for 99, Applebees and On the Border. We would put them to good use.
I have no problem with that kind of regifting. If I got a candle, I’d probably give it to my mom. If I had anyone that would wear the tacky jewlry my boyfriend’s mom gives me, I would (he and I have both told her that I don’t wear anything usually).
It’s all in matching the person to the gift, not where the gift came from.
The only problem I see with re-gifting gift cards is the expiration. If I didn’t know the gift card was a re-gift I’d figure it would be good for a year from about the time I got it. As a re-gift it may go bad before then. I’d sure be pissed if my Olive Garden card started losing money significantly before a year is up.
What, they don’t have Chevy’s out there? Here in California, you’d have to search long and hard to find a Mexican restaurant that was worse than On the Border.
I once gave a nurse friend of mine who had a very nice handwriting a fountain pen which came from The Fountain Pen Hospital (kinda cute, I thought).
No, I didn’t have it monogrammed, and no it wasn’t their "Top-of-The-Line-Moses Used-This-One!"model, but it wasn’t cheap, either.
In short, I took some trouble to pick a gift she would like, and thought she would enjoy using, since she also did calligraphy.
After the holidays, I saw one of the ER docs with what I thought was a pen like the one I gave her.
Wrong.
I don’t know about all this re-gifting talk y’all, but my feelings were hurt when that happened. She was just a friend, but I mean damn!
Q
My ex MIL regifted the shittiest stuff you can imagine. Two that come to mind are the used cheese board (with knife marks in it) for me, and when my husband was her SIL, she gave him a dusty, half-full bottle of cologne. I don’t recall her ever purchasing a gift for anyone. She always gives away some piece of crap she no longer wants.
Thee’s a large minority of consumers who think anything chain is crap. They’ll go to the "local corner coffee shoppe’ every time over Starbucks, to the “local independent bookstore” over Borders, and to “el burro taco” over Chevies. It’s sort of a snobbishness.
I go to the business that gives me the best product at the best price with the best service.
I am temporarily working in the Financial District of SF. Coffee houses every-fucking-where. Starbucks every block, another chain place in between, with a good number of independents scattered around. I tried 3 chains, two semi-independent (small chain)and two independents. Of the three chain shops, I rate them in this order: Tullys, Starbucks, Peets, but all close. Of the two independents, one (which made a big deal of how it wasn’t Starbucks) was the worst by far. It’s listed prices were a trifle lower than Starbucks, but they charged extra for EVERYTHING, making the end result quite a bit more pricy- and the service was slow and surly. The other was worse than the chains in taste, but cheaper. The two small-local chains, the one which was part of a bakery was slightly worse that the “big 3”. The other, a “chain” of 3, had by far the best product, good service and about the same price.
So, if I had relied upon the “big chain” stores, I would have gotten an above average product, at an average price, with good service. Ain’t nuthin wrong with that. If I had gone with the “no-chain-stores-for-me” snobs, I would get the worst product, at the worst price, with the worst service. So sure, by shopping around, I found an “independant local” with the best of all three, but settling for a “cuppa” at Starbucks wouldn’t be so bad.
Living in the San Jose area, I have eaten at dozens and dozens of Mexican restaurants. *Most * of the independents aren’t as good as Chevy’s, I am afraid.
Dudes rave about “Scott’s” a “local independant” seafood restaurant, but I found them snotty, only adequate, and extremely overpriced. I’d eat at Red Lobster anytime over them. Then again, Hogg’s seafood bar or the Yankee Pier beats Red Lobster hands down.
Nothing wrong with a good chain. They maybe aren’t the best you can do, but many “local independents” are far worse.
Well, I’m not giving away the gift card because I think it’s crap. I’m giving it away because I’d rather cross someone’s name off my long Christmas list than eat a free meal. For that reason, I was really overjoyed to receive it!
I plan to give it to one of the people who would get an impersonal token anyway…possibly one of the kids’ teachers.
Also, nearly every year someone will give me a box of chocolates, which I promptly regift to my public library staff. If it’s not a big enough box, I buy some more so there’s enough to go around. This is one of the few things I do at the holidays because I really want to, so it may be impersonal and passed-along, but it’s given with love! And I’m grateful to the giver for easing my holiday financial obligations, if ever so slightly.
Nothing wrong with sensible regifting.
Sensible being defined as nothing personalized, used, or screaming “I’m A Regift!” Sensible also including not regifting in such a way as to allow the possibility of either the original giver or the recipient discovering (and possibly being hurt by) the regift. So, no regifting one coworker’s gift to you to another coworker - no same-family regifting. No regifting items people might notice you don’t possess - or items you might be expected to produce.
Last Christmas, my boss gave me a $400 bottle of wine. Actually he regifted to me - it was a gift to him from a client, but it wasn’t Kosher wine, therefore he couldn’t touch it. I’m not Jewish, so he handed it off to me to “dispose of”, which is his code for “have a lovely gift for being such a fabulous assistant”. My husband and I don’t drink, so we promptly re-regifted it to my husband’s mother who’s way into wine. She loved it to tiny pieces. We didn’t have to play Mother-In-Law Gift Roulette. Everyone’s happy. No evil non-Kosher wine for my boss to deal with, thoughtful gift for his assistant taken care of. No randomly seriously expensive alcohol kicking around my house filled with non-drinkers gathering dust, appropriate gift for my very-picky-and-liable-to-complain-about-gifts mother-in-law taken care of. One mother-in-law filled with acquisitive glee over having scored a vintage bottle of champagne. Smiles all around!
I have no problem at all with regifting, as long as you don’t hurt the feelings of the person who gave you the gift in the first place. Life’s too short to worry about silly standards of politeness that appear to be created to support the retail industry. I don’t even have a problem with giving or receiving used gifts (as long as it’s not, like, half used-up).
Last year for Christmas I gave my Dad Fawlty Towers on DVD. It was a copy I already owned, and I knew he wanted it. I realized I hadn’t watched it for a year or two, and might not get around to it for the next year or two, why not give it to him? There was no plastic wrap and the packaging wasn’t pristine mint, but so what?