6.5 Tips For Regifting At This Season of Delights Which Strike Fancy

6.5 Tips For Regifting Items Already Purchased By Someone Else As a Gift To You But You Will Give To Someone Else

’tis the season to be jolly. Jolly derives, from, perhaps, a Germanic loan-word via the Old Norse ‘jol’ which means ‘winter feast’. This word could relate to ‘yule’  - as in ‘yuley’ only pronounced with a German-Norse accent. Word origins are as tricky as picking up bits of a broken ornament. ’tis also the season to bear gifts. These tips may enable setting aside funds to survive the economic downturn without increase of annoying debt.

1.0 Perhaps this is obvious but the regifting of brassieres, panty hose, corsets, knickers, gaunch, jock straps, thongs, pantaloons, baby dolls, g-strings, camisoles, boxers, briefs, and other apparel of underwear is questionable – even if only slightly worn. Such items might cause a bewilderment of intentions which dampen the season’s good will.

2.0 Items which plainly display the monogram of your surname will raise eyebrows, particularly if your name is Wilhemminah Hah-Hah Collins and you are gifting a set of towels to Kenneth B. Waltzinsky. Think before you wrap.

3.0 Ensure the gift is in working condition. Perhaps you received several appliances as wedding gifts and the excess clogs up needed storage space. However, best to give the combo yogurt-bread-clock-radio-doughtnut-fryer a whirl before shunting the item off to a friend who will demand the service warranty at 26 December, 2012. To regift an appliance is a challenge because the recipient can have their own retirement fund in play with return of gifts for cash refund. Avoid persons who make clear they need a receipt.

4.0 Take the time to unwrap the gift item and check for rot, mildew, bug infestations and the like. If you discover the item is already a regifted item, strike this person from your gift lift immediately. Always take the time to wrap the regift in fresh, unwrinkled wrap and an unused bow. Take time to pen a handwritten card with various holiday endearments copied from a reputable website.

5.0 Check the condition of the item. Nicks, dents, scratches, tears, rents, pits, cavities, bruises, blisters, pockmarks, furrows, dimples and such may identify the item as a ‘discard’ rather than gift. Take time to hammer out indentations in that toaster. Make time to snip off pulled threads. Find time to melt and clean wax out of the candelabrum. Discover a use for a neglected set of retouch crayons.

6.0 Hire I.T. people to set up a gift giving spreadsheet system to avoid accidental regift of an item to the original giver. As memories can become as overloaded as credit cards, do not rely on intuition or outdated Rol-O-Ducks system. Ensure all original gift items bear the name, date and approximate value. The price is important as it is simply offensive to regift with an extraordinarily expensive item which is well beyond the means of reciprocity.

6.5 Ensure there is an adequate supply of . . . ‘scusa. The timer has rung, signalling that the rinse to bleach out blueberry stains from a set of sheets is, hopefully, successful.

© S. Calliou. November 28, 2012.

From Blue Dog Studio

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15 thoughts on “6.5 Tips For Regifting At This Season of Delights Which Strike Fancy

  1. Pingback: The Good Word: Re-Gifting: Green and Guilt-Free » THE GOOD WORD

  2. I am totally a re-gifter. I am not a consumerism type person so I hate when people are always buying gifts just to give something which is often not something I need or can use. I get so many perfumes soaps, lotions and such. I can’t and don’t use any of that stuff that if full of chemicals. So I pass them on to someone who doesn’t care what they put on their bodies. I have a closet full gifts to pass on. Problem always is when I forget who gave it to me and worry I may be giving it back to the giver. Oh well most people buy what they really want for themselves.

  3. Top tips eh!? Good ones too. Am changing my name to William Ian Thomas Harold Lionel Oliver Victor Edwards – so any monograms will be a bonus not a problem ;)

    • Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening Panda

      I am just off to see what magic I can work with a felt marker to produce a suitable ornate monogrammed set of towelettes. I also hope you might add, at the very least, one iota of wisdom. Wut doyah think of car theft as a potentially simple way to regift?

      Will be by later as laundry is beginning to taunt and it seems no one else nearby knows how to dump cloth into water.

      • It might work, if you can figure how to leave a note with the owner, explaining how you just saved them £3,000 on fuel, £500 insurance, £300 MOT, £200 tax and the price of a carwash?
        Better I think to steal children’s bicycles. Makes it easy for the parents to choose a present, and you could just ‘swap them all over’, so everyone has a new bike but no-one has to buy any?!

        Anyway, don’t worry about the washing – I’ve had that away for my Aunt Nora! She gets a gift and you don’t have to hang the washing! It’s all good :)

        • O.K. gottcha. Theft as public service. I sense a piece of writing emerging or just that too full feeling from dinner? Like the bicycles swap-a-roo because what kid doesn’t like a ‘new’ bike. A little paint job, file down that serial number and voila! Very creative Panda. I feel that this household will have one of the best budget years ever wrt gifting. In fact, a Boxing Day Yard Sale might even provide a year-end profit.

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