Re-gifting...

My foster mom never regifted, but she did give away a lot of stuff. Whenever I went to visit she'd load me up with clothes and things other people had gotten her that she didn't want. Though we did seem to recycle gift bags frequently. I once gave her a gift in a gift bag, and a couple years later I got the same bag back from a different family friend. I knew it was the same bag because it still had the original name tag on it. For laughs I used it the next time I had to give my foster mom a gift.. and still left the original tag on it.

I don't have any re-gifting stories but I would like to point out that I don't mind doing it or if my gift was given to someone else that would appreciate it better. Sometimes we believe a person would be able to appreciate something and find it useful, but you never know when someone else would love it even more.

I thought I did not, but I do. Years ago I went to a ceramic shop and made many things. One year I made bread plates for everyone. "Give us this day" etc. I finished them in various types of brown and gold interesting glazes. Unique items. Okay, my brother had been divorced at that time, and I made something else for him, or he was not even married the first time. One day after he married the second time, I was at his house, and my new SIL, who loves to cook, says to me, "See what my new sister in law made for me?"(my older sister) and shows me a nice bread plate. I laughed and said,"Renee, I made that, see, here are my initials and the year." Actually, it is a miracle my older sister had it to give to her--her husband liked to get mad around any gift giving occasion, especially Christmas, and break everything. She got rid of him, but if you ask her today she says "I still love him". So much for my regifting. My older sister, like you, liked the plate, but she also likes to give things to people. I seldom see her but that she has something to give to me as a little gift.

I remember one year my boss gave me a small gift that I re-gifted. It was a candle and a candle holder. I ended up giving it to my son's daycare provider. Not because I didn't like it either, but because I had not had time to get her a gift and I had it in my car still.

That's really quite funny! I like your spirit, instead of feeling offended you just laughed it off! In most cases I always receive gifts that I don't really use because either I really don't need them or they are not fitting my taste. If I find the gift not really fitting my taste I don't give it to someone else unless I've not asked her if she likes and she need this. I don't want the gift to end up being re-gifted again. Ha!ha!ha! I am really so careful about re-gifting. Actually when I recycle a gift I don't just do it because I have nothing to give but rather because the next recipient needs this more than I do. Also I make sure that the person to whom I'd give this out does not have any relation or any contact with the original giver of the gift.

Oh yes, but we make a whole lot of fun out of it. We don't "repurpose" gifts, if it's something that is the wrong size or the like, I take it for exchange. But we have what is called a "re-gifted" stocking for each of us in the family. We fill these stockings with little gifts that are usually a dollar or less. They are even wrapped in newspaper. We then open them and get a good laugh out of who gets what. They are then taken to our respective homes, and put away with the Christmas ornaments until the next year, when most of them are "gifted" to another family member. It's really a fun thing to do.

A few years ago my ex sister in law gave me a gift of several snowman items...but they were all in blue...which totally didn't match anything in my house....they stayed in the closet for about five years then one day my daughter ran across them and told me to regift it to her because she loved all of the things.....so for Christmas she got my old gift and loved it!

That gift sure made the rounds! It would be even funnier if the vase was regifted to you. It was such a nice vase you all shared it!!

I received two of exactly the same toy for one of my daughter's birthdays, and she was young enough she didn't notice, so I just saved it and gave it to someone else when they had a birthday lol. She gets so much stuff it's really more inconvenient to exchange it - if it had been clothing I probably would have exchanged it though.

i have probably regifted a lot. reason being like you said, sometimes people really like something i have and i just give it to them if i dont use it and even when i like it myself. because like ive told my kids, if you really like something, thats usually a good gift to give. sacrificing is a sweet thing to do.

No, but I think it's a great Idea. No sense of letting a present go to waste, if you don't like it there's always some one who does

When I moved into my house, the previous owners left us some of their things ... what they thought we could use, such as the garden ornaments and things like that ... because they were an older couple and were moving into a smaller house with a smaller yard. When my parents moved out of state, they also "downsized" and gave us kids as much of their stuff as they could not only so they wouldn't have to pack and move it but also because they wanted us to have it. Recently, I was going through things and getting rid of stuff that I didn't need or didn't use. I found a couple of garden figures that were packed away when we re-did one of the gardens. I thought my parents would like them, because they have recently been expanding their gardens. When we gave my parents the figures, my mom started laughing, because she thought I was "re-gifting" a statue that they had given away when they moved. Apparently one of the lawn figures was almost exactly like a figurine that they had when they lived here - the only real difference is one was made for display indoors and the other was for outdoors!

I have something similar, but mine involves a fruitcake. I know that when I was young, and was still living at home, fruit cakes were very much a common thing to give families. We didn't like it, but somehow people still gave us fruit cakes. My mom didn't tell us, but I was sure that a few of these fruitcakes found their way in our church raffles. As gifts donated by families. I remember being so worried on Christmas, as I knew one of these gifts was given by our neighbor who was also involved in the church.

Actually this year, we had a few extra gifts that we needed for our co-workers at work, and we had a few that we had gotten last year that were untouched and we decided to give those to them. They were actually really nice gifts to, but personally neither my hubby nor myself had any use for them. One was a perfume from Clinique and a nice men's wallet (leather).

I have re-gifted a couple of things like books that I didn't want to read, but I am always very careful, because I don't want to make the same mistake as one of my friends did. She received a book from another friend and when the opened it she discovered that there was a message inside. It said: "Hi Mette! Happy Birthday!"...but my friend's name was Nina and she received the book as a christmas present

That's nice of you, Dawn! Hmmmm . . . I do "tactfully" re-gift. But I hate it when someone else regifts to me and it's an OBVIOUS regift. My sister in law rarely gives us gifts. One Christmas she actually got me a gift and I was stunned. Well, I opened it, and it was a massage kit for 2. Weird gift to give to a sister in law, first of all, isn't it? The circle tape seal was broken (it's also one of those kinds of gifts that are usually shrink wrapped as well) and the contents looked scrambled (like it was tossed in). So, initially it was a positive stunned which turned into a negative stunned. It's not really a "story" - but that's what comes to mind. Grrrrr.

I'm not really one for re-gifting. If I don't have a use for it, likely I'll just end up selling it later. Plus there is no reason that a year later that I might not in fact really remember who got me what. It would rather awkward for me to re-gift the item to the person that had given it to me. It really would be something that was awkward. Of course, I actually had gotten something re-gifted right back to me that I am pretty certain that I did give out. It is just really something that I was taken aback by. Naturally I didn't want to cause an awkward scene but I think the person might have caught their grievous error, as they noticed the look on my face or so I'd like to assume.

Wow, that vase has travelled! It's great that it has though and if someone else can find a use for it, good for them. I can't think of any instances of my own though. The in-laws tried palming us off with a load of fake gold cutlery last night and I blurted out, "That would look crap on our hideous dining-table!" Oh dear. I put my foot in it a tad as it wouldn't surprise me if the said table was one of their cast-offs. Needless to say, we don't have their cutlery..thank God!

I don't like re-gifting either. However, last year I lost my job so we didn't want to spend a lot of money like usual. So we had tons and I mean tons of gifts from the past 2 years in our extra room. I went through all those gifts and re-gifted to my family. I don't think anyone knew but it was awkward watching family open our gifts. We're back on track for this year.

Regifting is not a concept or sort. We need to show our affection and care to them just by presenting to them. As simple as that.