QotD: I Bought This Just For You
Are you a re-gifter? Have you ever re-gifted?
Submitted by Sandals.
No. I was taught as a youngin' that it's never ok to give away gifts that I've been given, period. This could explain why I still have collections of knick-knacks and doohickies from who knows where, for which I have no use (if I ever did), and which take up valuable space at present, but that I, to this day, have not thrown away for some unknown reason.
Now that I'm older and have since learned to ask, "Why not?" I feel that re-gifting is somewhat okay for some situations:
- A joke/ white elephant game: The obvious gag fruitcake re-gift. Why break the chain of gag re-gifting fun, eh? I've never received a re-gifted fruitcake and because of that I like to think I only associate with people who have some sense.
- The gift you received still has the card attached for the original recipient (i.e. it's not addressed to you). OBVIOUS RE-GIFT. This actually happened to a friend of mine. The gift was weeks late for her wedding but the person didn't bother to look at her registry and ended up giving her something she had already received (albeit a later poorer-quality version of it). Re-gifting at its root comes from one not knowing someone else well enough to determine what would truly be appreciated as the symbolic token of one's thoughtfulness. The whole point of having a wedding registry, or any wish list for that matter, is to alleviate the lazy/procrastination/being cheap factor for the giver so that one can't really mess up the process of giving a thoughtful gift if reduced to guessing. The guesswork's already done, right? Alas, a lot of people don't take the time to really get to know each other, and thoughtless giving of useless knick-knacks and doohickies abound. Hence, the re-gift. If one gets exactly what one has asked for and then one receives a duplicate, why not share it with someone who doesn't have one at all and who could use it?
- Someone gives a non-drinker/non-smoker/vegetarian a big bottle of alcohol/box of cigars/a bag of beef jerky as a gift. Combined with a gracious acceptance and thoughtful re-gift (offer to share them with the giver and others who would like to receive these things) I feel that this is understandable if re-gifted.
So to recap, doing so as a joke, or to pass along a perfectly fine gift that happened to be inappropriate for the particular recipient are valid reasons to re-gift, as long as the re-giver does not lie about the effort put into the re-gift. One caveat, if it's something given seriously in really poor quality/taste/thought why re-gift it to somebody else? To re-gift something that you wouldn't want winds up reflecting badly on you. Let's remember that it's not the gift, but the thought that counts.
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