What a minefield giving can be.
And it can be particularly complicated when you’re a regifter, which involves giving someone something that you had received as a gift (or an item you had stashed in your closet).
I remember one regift I received that I didn’t appreciate – at the time.
When I was dating my husband, we surprised his mother by stopping by just before Christmas. We were dropping off gifts from the two of us early because we were going to spend the holiday with my family.
After we gave her the presents, she disappeared for a bit and returned with a nicely wrapped present for my husband and something else for me.
However, my gift looked as if it had been hurriedly wrapped. When I opened it, there were two wooden dolls dressed in traditional Mexican costumes. The dolls were in plastic bags and looked like a child’s souvenir.
I thanked her. But I was a little hurt. Clearly I had been regifted.
After that Christmas and about six months before my wedding, my husband’s mother was murdered during an attempted robbery by a man who had previously done handy work around her home. She was trying to help out a friend’s unemployed son, a recovering drug addict. Or so she thought.
It’s been 15 years since her death and I’ve kept those dolls. A gift that once looked cheap turned out to be a treasure. It was the last present she gave me.
This year, I want to regift those dolls to a granddaughter she never had a chance to know. My daughter, Olivia, collects dolls and I know she will appreciate that they came from her Grandma Lucy.
“With regifting it’s all about the meaning, motive and intent,” says Barbara Bitela, the author of “The Art of Regifting: Your ABC’s Guide, the Do’s and Don’ts, Urban Legends and Folklore.”
The debate about regifting heats up every holiday. Some people, like Bitela (and me), see nothing wrong with it if you do it right. Others think it’s crass. The thought, the latter group argues, needs to be followed by the spending of one’s own money for a gift to really be a gift.
The fact is more and more people find regifting an acceptable practice, according to a survey by Money Management International (MMI), a consumer credit counseling agency. More than half of surveyed consumers do not find regifting rude. And only a third do it to save money. The majority of people regift because they think the recipient will like the item given, according to the MMI survey.
“When done carefully, regifting … can help keep spending under control,” said Cate Williams, vice president of financial literacy for MMI.
Contact Michelle Singletary at singletarym@washpost.com or c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071.
