What to do with unwanted presents…
Re-gifting?
Originally posted on Blogger 4 January 2012.
I found a story in The Age about a tweet that Alexander McCall Smith had sent out at Christmas about what to do with unwanted gifts. He had an interesting take that you can give away, throw away or sell but no earlier than one month after Christmas.
I realised recently that I didn’t want to be involved in secret santa with work because I didn’t want to end up with new clutter. I did receive one gift from someone which was meant as a gag gift but I still don’t see why they would take the time to find and gift wrap something so silly, unless they are actually re-gifting something to me.
But reading the article in the paper (is it really still the ‘paper’ when I read online?), specifically the point to wait a month, reminded me of some Christmas gifts I received from my brother. After a few gifts that really didn’t fit or suit me and gentle hints to stop sending me clothes hadn’t worked, one year I sent the gift back to him.
Do I regret sending the gift back? No. He hasn’t really spoken to me since, but to be fair he rarely spoke to me anyway.
That same Christmas my sister gave me a top that came from a shop near where she lives. As I was unwrapping her gift she said if I didn’t like it I could take it back and exchange it for something else. It really wasn’t my style so I took it back and exchanged it for two pairs of earrings. Funny, one of those pairs of earrings I wore lots and when I lost one of them I was devastated.
It isn’t the value of the gift that is important to me; it is finding something that the receiver is most likely to appreciate.
Back in 2000 I put together a story on my parents. After doing a number interviews with them to get the information, scanning photos etc. I ran out of time so all of my family received the gifts in early January. My sister rang one of my brothers and effectively spoiled the surprise of what I was sending (he hadn’t received his yet). My brother did email me and say thank you with my sister following suit two weeks later. I had total radio silence from the other brother.
In about 2006 my mother was very ill – she’d had surgery with complications and was in an induced coma in ICU. I had just rented a DVD recorder with HD so I could transfer a lot of videos to DVD (back then to buy one would have cost $1,000+ so renting one for two weeks was all I could afford). Right in the middle of the two weeks mum was put into ICU and I dropped everything to go over and be there for my father and sister. Because the doctors wanted to give mum a tracheostomy and said she would never speak again, I decided to also burn a copy of these family DVDs for my brothers as there were a number of times where mum was in the video. This time my sister did say thank you but I had total radio silence from both brothers.
So I’ve given up. I had found something special and relevant to all who received it but it doesn’t seem to occur to them to say thank you. With the story on my parents I had way more of my parents friends contact me to say it was great than my family.
It is funny that one of my clients has had an excellent track record of finding little Christmas gifts for me. I have my cups of tea in a mug she gave me a few years ago. She arrived at the last appointment for the year, said Merry Christmas and handed me something wrapped in paper that obviously looked like a mug. My response after Merry Christmas back was, ‘I wonder what it is?’ As is my habit I put the gift under the tree and opened it on Christmas day. It took a few cups of tea to break it in but now it is the only cup I use. Because of the amount of use it has had the inside has those fine cracking lines. I started hunting around for a new cup about a year ago but haven’t been able to find one suitable as a replacement. It is so strange but a mug for my cups of tea is still considered to be one of my favourite gifts I’ve received. This Christmas I got a small fruit cake from her – which was very much appreciated for my morning tea with a cuppa!
My sister often is good picking the right gifts. I’ve received some beautiful jewellery from her and one Christmas many years ago she gave me a beautiful colourful silk scarf. I think she liked it to pick it out and give it to me, but constantly apologised if it wasn’t right (no amount of reassurances that I liked it seemed to satisfy her). I’m still a bit mystified by that.
For many years my parents used to buy me the Far Side desk calendar for Christmas until Gary Larson announced his retirement in 1995. Mum said it was the only gift she could get that she knew I would really appreciate.
I realised that it would help if I kept a list of small gifts I would appreciate so when someone asked me what I wanted I had suggestions for them. I think the year my sister gave me the top I exchanged I had asked for a milk jug and sugar bowl, something simple for everyday use. I never did get those!
I do have some old china pieces that mum used to have up in the top cupboard that were never used. Now I have them in my cupboard and rarely use them (I don’t get many visitors). Mum had given me a sugar bowl that was part of a set that due to an accident most of the mugs and perhaps the milk jug had been broken (possibly a gift that mum had rarely used). The sugar bowl has a big crack in it but I have been using it since – probably over 15 years now. The one I had asked my sister for was supposed to replace it. Oh well, I never quite got around to looking for one!
For many years now I haven’t been able to afford gifts for family for Christmas. Although really the only people who still give me anything is my parents with my sister’s family occasionally giving me something. If it wasn’t for the generosity from my sister at the end of 2010 I would not have been able to go to my uncle’s funeral.
As I write this I realise that when I have made gifts for my family they have often cost more money than I had anticipated and taken way more time, ‘yeah, I’ll just put together a story on my parents, that will be easy.’ It took a couple of months to put together and cost me nearly $200 to do – phone calls and paper to print it out (special paper suitable for printing photos back then cost quite a lot). The transferring of video to DVDs took 2 weeks of constant transferring and burning and well over $200.
No wonder it takes a long time for me to find and then save up to get gifts for my family, I prefer to find something that means something but have also learnt that I need to be able to send it to them fully aware that I may not get any acknowledgement that they had received it or appreciate it. <sigh>
