Unwanted presents? Try regifting
Unwanted gifts can be passed on with ease
If this Christmas has left you with a surfeit of unwanted presents - novelty pants which exceed your available drawer space, more CDs than you will ever need to use as coasters, or the European sock mountain - fret not. Alongside the usual methods of gift disposal, these turbulent economic times have led to an increase in a trend known as regifting - where presents make their way from one person to the next before finally settling with someone who will appreciate them.
It's a simple concept - check the present for suitability, wrap the gift back up in some nice new paper, and pass it on. It saves money, reduces waste (in the long run) and, philosophically, isn't as miserly as it might seem at first, as you are finding new use for something which you no longer need. As long as the original giver of the gift doesn't find out, you're in the clear - and your conscience can remain untroubled.
There's an American website, regiftable.com, which lists the dos and don'ts of regifting, and provides a handy checklist for whether or not a gift is a good candidate for distribution, as well as whether or not the reader is a good candidate for the act.
Among the tips in the site's Regifting 101 section is a mention of the opportunities to give unwanted presents away to charity, and the advice that sometimes it's better to "suck it up and keep an unwanted gift - after all, it was a gift".
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