Unwanted Gift

[TransvisionTramp]

I held a class party yesterday for DD, and she received a gift from one of her classmates that we had given them a few weeks ago.
I think it's quite funny and she likes it, so all's well (but note to parents, if you are going to recycle a gift, probably not a good idea to give it back to the person who bought it in the first place ).
DH thinks it's outrageous and rude of the parents.
What does mumsnet think?

Haha! We have had duplicates, I've always exchanged them though. I wouldn't take offence.

Not RTFT but read short story "Night in Paris" by Patrice Chaplin if you get the chance. I came across it in "The Young Oxford Book of Christmas Stories" and loved it. All about a young girl growing up in a family that have taken regifting to an art form with the same presents circulating round and round.

I always get my son's friends something that he already has. Too lazy to deal with him complaining that he wants one too.

Ha ha this has happened to me twice in the past that I can recall. One was from a very close friend at Christmas passing a gift back that I gave her maybe a year before - I recall it specifically as it was a boots Christmas 3 for 2 hair care product which came in a distinctive make up bag which I'd actually quite liked myself. The item was no longer available as it was just for Christmas that year and I remember specifically giving it to her. Bit peeved but know she's quite tight with gifts, I just knew for future not to make as big a fuss / stress re finding the right present which I had done previously.
More recently and quite hilariously I gave a bottle of bubbly to a work colleague as a Birthday gift, it was a particular brand that cannot be bought in the uk. A few weeks ago I had a house warming party where this same bottle was presented back to me... it was only later my dad discussed with everyone who'd listen, her included, about this special bottle of wine and how it couldn't be bought in uk! I couldn't look at her for fear of giggling...she text me later and said she'd picked up the wrong bottle of wine on the way out off the house....

oh littleladybird14 that's my favourite one so far!
Did you ask your friend if she wanted to swap it for the correct one?

I peel the labels off gifts and attach to presents. Helps with thank you letters (yes we do those) but also regifting. I'm all for regifting but there's an art form to it! Most presents my two give are from Waterstones top tip alert!! Waterstones do gift receipts all year round and give out 2 types of bonus points. Which I collect all year to bump up Christmas budget. Waterstones also have buy one, get one half price deals. It's not tat and is easy to store. Most people can squeeze another book in. I go for activity/sticker books pitched to child's age or with a character that shares the name of the birthday child. End of top tip alert!!!

this might make you laugh, OP - not quite so much regifting, but donating. I used to help my DM at her school Christmas fair, usually on the tombola. it is amazing how people will win the wrong things on tombolas. bald men win the hair salon voucher. children win the one bottle of real champagne. quite extraordinary.

anyway, this year there was a rather intense lady who was clearly a tombola fanatic. she kept coming back and buying ticket after ticket. eventually she won something and went away with it. a bit later on, she was back to see me, complaining about her prize (because that is what you do at a 10p tombola to raise money for charity).

"these don't work!" she announced, peering at me through a pair of reading glasses. "right," I said, still waiting for her to tell me what was wrong. I realised after a while that she meant the glasses, and then it came out that she didn't need reading glasses. eventually it transpired that she had won them on the tombola. one of the other ladies had put her reading glasses down, and my overtired mother had put a tombola number on the case!

I found her a chocolate bar instead, but I couldn't stop laughing. if you don't need reading glasses, why would they magically work just because you won them on a tombola??

Apologies for all the exclamation marks. I think I have a problem.

Oh Jesus the whole regifting saga..!!

My inlaws do not speak to me anymore, and I mean there was a massive fuss made over this and they have cut all contact with me due to a regifted gift

We don't do Xmas gifts for adults just kids. Anyway I had a lovely box of chocolates I got from flowers I received from interflora

I thought it would be nice if my 1 year old gave them to his granny ( my mother in law) on Xmas day just as a nice thing

Anyway she turned box over and it said not for resale interflora so she new I hadn't bought them but had been given them

And they cut all contact with me and caused a huge family fall out over it

A flipping box of chocolates from a 1 year..!! Twats lol

Anyway that's my 1 and only experience of regifting 😂😂🙈🙈

It's possible it was a duplicate or even that the dd liked it so much she got your dd the same.

What is the gift out of interest?

We all had to give in prizes for the school tombola, I sent in a Minions stationery set. Each Christmas all the children at school get given a gift from'Santa', ds got the minions stationery set back!

ILs always give books, with an inscription on first page so no chance of re-gifting or swapping if we already have it (which we always seem to ) so it just goes to charity shop 👍
Any meaningless crap I get given (tea towel with a chicken on, metal cat for the garden ) just goes right back unashamedly. I think if they bought it they must like it. If you can't be bothered to talk to me let me get a word in edge ways you'd know I can't stand tat
My family on the other hand don't do presents for adults saves so much hassle & leaves more cash for the kids

Not so much re-gifting, but mistaken gifting. I think a confused aunt had too many Christmas presents to wrap all at once and put the wrong label on a couple of her gifts. My dear husband (when he was surely a delightful 5 year old) unwrapped his gift on Christmas morning to receive ... a cravat! Highly inappropriate for a child. Anyway, being the good-hearted type he was with a GSOH he wore it all day for a chuckle.

I don't generally regift but when you do a class party and get 30 presents for your kid it's just too much for them to possibly play with imo. So I do re-gift. But try very hard not to give it to the person who gave it (and if DD remembers it and wants to play with it of course she can).

When my aunt died, my mum found a pile of gifts in her cupboard, labelled with the name of the giver, so she wouldn't give them back to the person she'd got them from.

Same aunt was less thoughtful when it came to us, one year, and simply packaged up the contents of a cupboard clear-out and sent them to us in a box, telling us to divide them up.

My sister writes messages inside the box now. Because one year 3 family members regifted gifts she had given to them and she somehow figured it out

She keeps trying to catch us out with our regifting but we're all pretty smart and actually made a game of it.

my sister is stuck up and is vocal about how much spends rather than giving thought to the gift. Last year she gave my very allergic partner an expensive box of nutty chocolates. Although I think this was more passive aggressive than thoughtless. She's always giving me soap sets she knows I can't use because of psoriasis. I'm covered with patches so its very obvious its real.

Anyway, regifting can be fun and i have no problem with it.

I'm always trying to 're-gift' some of the awful tat one of my friends gives me for my birthday and Christmas every year! The thing is, I know that most of my gifts from her are re-gifts from her friends as she is always moaning about what people buy her (i.e. she just wants money or gift cards, although she'd never give those to others because she picks up presents months in advance whenever she sees something cheap). I've lost count of the bloody awful stuff she's given me over the years - second hand DVD's of films I don't want to see, mug and coaster sets (!), awful pieces of craft jewellery that aren't my taste and bloody notebooks/diaries/calendars/card sets that I'll never use in a million years. I don't say anything to her because I'm of the opinion that you should just accept what you're given with grace when somebody buys you something but to be honest I'd rather go without!

Everyone regifts stuff from kids' parties! Wouldn't bother me really!

My SIL is famed among our family for shamefacedly bad gifting. I've had 'not for resale' testers from beauty counters, or things that she has obviously been given free at work.

One year DS was 3 and she gave him a little rucksack with that foil lining - to keep things cool. It was plain green rather than covered with a cartoon character or anything and had a brand name I didn't recognise on it. To keep things real she had put a pair of pants in it that said 'part of a set of 3' on them. Anyway I used to pack him off to nursery and then later to school with his snacks and sandwich etc in the little bag.

Probably a good 2 years later I was sitting down in a good friend's house having a cup of tea and I noticed the same green rucksack hanging on a hook. 'Oh - I've got exactly the same one as that!' I said. She looked at me very strangely. 'Why have YOU got one of those?' I told her that SIL had given it as a birthday present to DS 2 years ago. Friend then laughed until she was crying and I couldn't get her to tell me why this was all so funny. When she did eventually recover her power of speech she told me:

'It's the bag they give you to take your IVF drugs home in every week.'

So of course my SIL had had successful IVF and had no further use for it. I laughed so much thinking about how other mums in the know would have recognised the bag and seen me packing off DS with it on his little back and would have thought how open and proud I was about my little IVF baby! Not that I mind - but I might have done!

I must admit I do recycle presents because there is no point in keeping something of no use to us and having to buy new for others when I have things in the house that they may like. Someone gave my mum a gift of a big box of chocolates at christmas and it mentioned a prize draw ... when I looked on the back, the prize draw finished the previous March!! And the other day my neighbour brought me round some champagne truffles, saying I've had a few and don't want them so thought you'd like them .... errr no!

TransvisionTramp Ha ha she said she'd bring the right bottle into work the following week but she never did. I never mentioned it as to be honest it was quite a nice bottle of bubbly I'd given her so was quite happy to have it back!

My dD got a gift for her 6th birthday from a child in her class that we had gifted to them about 2 months earlier. I think regifting is fine, but you should keep track of where things come from so you don't regift to the original giver, that's just rude. The other child had her birthday in the school holidays and my dD was one of only 3 of the invitees who bothered to go to the party, and I felt a bit offended actually when we were given back the gift!!

I'm with you transvision tramp!
Numpties.
Cand deny that were regifters here too tho!

My son (teenage) rescued a book i was throwing out last November, and said he wanted to read it. On Xmas day I unwrapped my present from him, and it was...the book I threw out (he hadn't enjoyed it either, and seemed to have forgotten how he acquired it)! His older brother just looked at him and shook his head :-D.

I used to send any random gifts from mil to the school bazaar. Unfortunately mil has started going so I cant do that anymore

Love the OP's username. Wonder how many of Transvision Vamp's Cds ended up as regifts.