Have you ever "recycled" a gift?

[DocRafiki]

I am ALL FOR "recycling" gifts, as long as you re-give the gift to someone who doesn't know the original giver. Of course, if it's complete garbage, it might be best to toss it out. I can't think of any gifts that I've recycled. Have you ever done this?

Oh, I do remember when we were kids, my sis and I would sneak into my brother's room, steal one of his old toys, and wrap it up as a new gift for him. I remember doing this with some Hot Wheels (already out of the packaging, of course), and he actually thought he was getting new toys and thought they were cool! :lol

 

[Meriweather]

Yep...I do it quite often.
It might be something that just isn't "me", but I know someone else will like it.

 

[Michelle]

Yes, I "re-gifted" an expensive piece of jewelry, actually. It was a large brooch, very avant garde, and just nothing I would ever wear. The recipient was someone who loved that type of jewelry and she was thrilled.

I would never re-gift anything junky, though.

 

[ASFCurly]

my grandmother did a white elephant type give away once when I was at her house with my Mom, sister, aunt and female cousins (a girls weekend) and she put something out that my aunt had given her, my aunt was very offended and my grandmother didn't help the situation much.

 

[KimRaye]

I don't recall doing this but, I've wanted to!

I have given "free" items away as gifts though. i.e. last year, Disney Monopoly, buy one get one free, I gave the free one to DH's niece as a gift.

This year, I'm giving my niece the lounging Pooh that came free with my Amazon/Toys R Us order. I'm giving her something else though, too.

 

[Jeff in BigD]

Someone gave me Fantasia on DVD, but I was planning on buying the anthology, so when a friend's birthday (& he's into animation)came up, that bad boy got wrapped up & regiven.

 

[Cindy B]

YEp, guilty as charged.. and I also do the "free" items as well.

The Bath and Body Works coupon came in handy for that...


I keep all gifts that aren't me, into a closet.. then I pull out as needed.

 

[Nutsy]

You bet I have

Just stuff that wasn't me, but I knew fitted somone else.....

 

[Shannon G]

I think it's okay to re-gift, as long as it is something that the person you're giving it to will like. I've known people who re-gifted stuff they didn't want to the completely wrong person - they just wanted to get rid of it, and put no thought into it. An example that takes the cake - we pick names to for a gift exchange for Christmas Eve, and my step-cousin gave my father a candleabra (sp?) - why would you give this to a a guy, who doesn't give a rat's behind about candles?!? So, yes, I go ahead and re-gift, but it is still necessary to put some thought into the gift!

 

[Marla Hellwig]

I have in the past if the gift just isn't me and it fits someone else to a "T"

 

[SeaSpray]

I read the title of this thread quickly, and I thought it asked if you've ever received a recycled gift! LOL

My MIL (DH's stepmother), ALWAYS gives us old gifts. LOL One of them was a used rice cooker. She's given me old sweaters with holes in them. lol

She's an alcoholic who doesn't realize how obvious these used gifts are.

DH and I don't say a word, we just say "thanks" then throw the items away.

FIL should know better than to let her give us gifts like that, but to keep the peace because in the grand scheme of things, this isn't important at all, I don't say a word to DH either. He knows, he's embarrassed about it, and that's that.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

You know I do not regift because "stepmom In Law" has put a bad taste in our mouth about it.
Not only does she buy junk from thrift stores she also regifts everything.
One year she regifted a shirt that BIL gave to them...she gave it back as a b-day gift.
Also we have been regifted twice gifts that the same BIL gave to them.


Now we just laugh about it because what else can you do? We hardly see them anyway.

 

[Chattyaholic]

I did when we were first married, 27 years ago. We received about 8-9 blankets as wedding gifts, we kept 3-4 and put the rest in the closet to use as gifts for weddings we were invited to later. We were on a strict budget that first year or two of our marriage, so the blankets really came in handy to give!

 

[EROS]

We "recycled" several of our wedding gifts many years ago ...........

 

[Bob NC]

We never re-gift, however, we very frequently give gifts we don't need/like to Goodwill or the church.

 

[Cindy B]

Yes I remember getting so many wedding presents that were "re gifted"... that was the year of silver plated picture frames... what is that all about?


And knife sets... I can't tell you how many knife sets we received.

 

[Jen D]

I've got one for you--- not only does my MIL regift stuff we gave her back to us, but:

When my husband and I were first dating in college and went to Taos we bought his mother a silver and turquoise bracelet. She said she liked it, but I never saw her wear it once.

About eight years later, long after we were married, she gave me the bracelet back, with a letter stating that it was an old family heirloom that was from some great grandmother who was in the Oklahoma Land Run.

No, she is not old and senile, she is in her right mind and not yet sixty.

I played along and told her how much I liked the bracelet and put it on. She said, "it's good you like silver and turquoise jewelry. You know, a lot of people don't like that kind of jewelry." REALLY?

 

[Disney845]

HaHa, funny thread. SO and I were out to dinner with another couple the other night and this topic came up. They had the funniest story. Our friend's younger brother got married this spring and some friends gave them a juicer for their wedding. The worst part was they just rewrapped the box, but I guess forgot to check it, because it still had the original wedding card from the re-gifters wedding several years before! Our friends (as a joke) took a picture of younger bro and his new wife opening the gift with the old wedding card in it to send back to the re-gifters with a thank you card as a joke. (The are all good friends so it won't cause any problems).

I have re-gifted things that I got that I had either no use for or just plain didn't like. I don't think this is bad so long as you never used the gift, or it isn't something junky.

 

[epcotfan]

I would if it was something unused that was sitting in my closet. Hey why not pass it onto someone else's closet!

 

[Kermit]

We also did that with several of our wedding gifts. The tacky stuff we sold at a garage sale, but the stuff that was nice but that we just didn't need we re-gifted.

Now I find that I use eBay most of the time. My MIL likes to buy us decorative stuff for our house, but we have completely different tastes. Plus, we've redecorated since she's been here. She usually buys us country-themed pictures, and they don't exactly fit in our leopard print living room.