Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Awkward regifting stories!

74 replies

DilemmaADay · 15/12/2020 20:36

Has anyone ever had a present that they decided to regift, which has come back to bite them?

I've been on the receiving end many moons ago when I worked in my previous job. I got a slightly snooty colleague "Deborah" for secret santa and had no idea what to get her. I got her some chocolates as id seen her chocolate often and some nice hand cream. The next week happened to be another colleagues birthday and she walked onto our department and walked over to "Deborah " and thanked her for the birthday present, before pulling out the chocolates I'd brought Deborah and offering them around....my face must have dropped and Deborah made an excuse and said she liked them sooo much she decided to buy them for the other colleague. I wouldnt have minded at all at her regifting, but the blatant lie made it more awkward so I just pretended it was a stunning coincidence and left work feeling a bit stung. I was only about 21 at the time.

OP posts:
ranoutofquinoaandprosecco · 15/12/2020 20:37

Wedding present regifted to us that the giver mustn't have realised had been engraved with their names and their wedding date!

Flowers2020bloom · 15/12/2020 20:41

My friend gave my son a present that consisted of two of each of the accessories that came with the main item (think craft items) - she has 2 boys so clearly received 2 of the same for them and hadn't realised one of the boxes was just being used to store the spare bits! I've never mentioned it!!

Elouera · 15/12/2020 20:46

DH's step-mum has given me the exact, same face cream over 3x now for Christmas. Not a cheap brand, but I do suspect its the 1 item, from a gift pack that she doesnt use, hence gives it to me!!!

Elouera · 15/12/2020 20:47

I should add that its just random, to give 1 toiletry/facial item, rather than a pack or other items in the same range or genre.

Alexindiamondarmour · 15/12/2020 20:51

My friend’s DD had her birthday party and was given a present. She opened it to find a birthday card tucked inside the wrapping paper on top of the toy, and it was the same birthday card and present my friend had given that same child for their birthday 6 months prior.

We figured the mum must have left the card on it in her cupboard to say who it was from so as not to make this exact mistake. The system broke down there somewhere!

icedaisy · 15/12/2020 20:55

Dh is tenant farmer but when we christened Dd it's village tradition to invite all family, friends and neighbours. Huge Arable farmers came from neighbouring valley, exceptionally wealthy. When I opened there gift it was a beautiful money box but in the bottom was a tag giving it to there 18 year old daughter on her christening.....oops.

It's lovely but check for tucked away gift tags before regifting.

PineappleCrush10 · 15/12/2020 20:55

Got my friend’s daughter a lovely craft gift set (chosen by my daughter) and gave it to her at her birthday party. The next week, our children were at a mutual friends party and she began opening her gifts. My friend began acting funny and made some excuse and scarpered as the gifts were being open, and I soon realised why when the birthday girl received the very same craft set we’d gifted the week before to my friend’s daughter. I was a bit hurt as my daughters had taken time to choose the gift in the first place. I wouldn’t mind so much but only waiting a week before “off loading” it is a bit poor!

RaymondSpectacles · 15/12/2020 20:55

I gave my ex-friend a photo cube for her birthday. She filled it with photos and gave it to our mutual friend as a Christmas present. In front of me Grin

The mutual friend was pissed of with ME for pointing it out (after regifter had left) Hmm

WillSantaBeComingToTown · 15/12/2020 21:01

@PineappleCrush10

Got my friend’s daughter a lovely craft gift set (chosen by my daughter) and gave it to her at her birthday party. The next week, our children were at a mutual friends party and she began opening her gifts. My friend began acting funny and made some excuse and scarpered as the gifts were being open, and I soon realised why when the birthday girl received the very same craft set we’d gifted the week before to my friend’s daughter. I was a bit hurt as my daughters had taken time to choose the gift in the first place. I wouldn’t mind so much but only waiting a week before “off loading” it is a bit poor!
I would be more concerned about financial troubles

I made Santa sacks for a family at school-loads- they had 6 children and so 100+ gifts.

I saw 2 of the gifts pop up later gifted as birthday presents to other children. It was the 1st year that the family had ever attended any parties. I then realised that being financially so poor that you can't afford the gift and so decline the invite must have a terrible impact on so many children.

Maybe broach this with your friend.

Thereluctantstepmother · 15/12/2020 21:03

Gosh some of these are so cringey!
A nice one... my dad is a gardener and a lot of the old ladies love him/ make him cups of tea and from time to time he gives them lifts to the hospital etc.
One lady gave him a bottle of wine for xmas in a wine gift bag.
He then gave his own mum the wine bag with his own home made ginger wine in it.
A year later sadly the customer who’d given him the wine died and my Nan who had received the wine bag went to pass it on again and found a small envelope inside it with a card for my dad and a £50 note!
It was a lovely thing to happen 🥰

Thereluctantstepmother · 15/12/2020 21:09

A not so nice one... I was in a 12 step group years ago (not AA) and gave my then sponsor a note book with a lovely colourful canvas cover.
Anyway she convinced me (against my better judgement) to invite her to my wedding and guess what her wedding gift was? That’s right- the note book I’d given her before! She said it could be a visitors book Confused
She is one of the few friends I’ve gone NC with as she turned out to be a controlling bully.

SquirrelFan · 15/12/2020 21:10

My daughter received a lavishly illustrated book of Bible stories for her 6(th?) birthday from a schoolfriend. I thought it was kind of an odd gift as we aren't religious and neither are they, then I saw the title page was inscribed "To (schoolfriend)". Clearly they hadn't had time to get anything and just wrapped the least-used-looking book on their shelf!
(Before daughter saw, I carefully ripped out the inscribed page. She never noticed.)

Elfieishere · 15/12/2020 21:16

I always put a post it note on the gifts my kids get that won’t get used/are pure crap so I don’t give back to the same person and not in the same friendship groups

SoggyBiscuitss · 15/12/2020 21:17

A double re-gift.

Work gave us each a bottle of Sainsbury’s Bucks Fizz
I wasnt drinking as I was newly pregnant so I added it to my aunties present bundle for Xmas.

7 months later she came to visit my new baby and handed me the Buck’s Fizz!! Grin I didn’t tell her.
Very awkward.

Barmyfarmy · 15/12/2020 21:19

Dh and I went to a friend's wedding a few months before ours, it was quite a small gathering and they didn't get many gifts (this is relevant). We got them a little trinket box with their initials engraved. Dh and I had a tiny wedding and few knew the date.

When we visited these friends for their 1st anniversary bbq we mentioned that we'd gotten married and they had no idea. Just before we left my friend dashed upstairs and brought down a gift bag and said she'd almost forgotten to give us our wedding present. We were a little confused but were rushing home so brushed it off and left.

Opened it the next day and found the little silver trinket box with their initials on and our card unopened in the bag. Our gift was one of 5 at most at the wedding and they didn't even open the card before getting rid of it!

PineappleCrush10 · 15/12/2020 21:20

Financial difficulty was definitely not the issue, but even if I was unsure I wouldn’t dream of broaching financial difficulty with someone unless they brought it up first.

MyNameForToday1980 · 15/12/2020 21:27

We have a family story about a box of chocolates which were passed from aunt, to aunt, to gran, and finally to my mum.

My mum had been aware that the chocolates could well be regifted and suspected that the same box may have been doing the rounds. So she decided to finally put it out of its misery. Only to find it was 4 years out of date, and the contents had turned into a hillock of furry, mouldy, greying chocolate.

triceratops12 · 15/12/2020 21:28

I worked in a high street shop and after Christmas people used to return unwanted gifts. Often we'd scan the tag for an item and it would come up on the till the item was worth say 33p, because it was worthless as was sold so long ago. That was always awkward telling people it didn't have a value as the item was so old, so obviously a regift from the cupboard. I used to try and do it discreetly but some people loved telling them straight!

atomicnotsoblonde · 15/12/2020 21:55

I had a gift given to me by my mother, that I had bought for her. When I said, she said how she'd liked it so much she'd bought one herself. Errr, no you didn't mom.

She's also given me out of date chocolates as a present too. Feeling the love 🙄

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles · 15/12/2020 21:55

@ranoutofquinoaandprosecco

Perhaps you were supposed to add your name and wedding date to the cup and pass it on. I think that's what happened to our Hockey Cup at school.

hansgrueber · 15/12/2020 21:57

Apparently Nancy Reagan, wife of President Preagan, kept a cupboard of odds and sods and one year she gave their grandchild a teddy for birthday or Christmas present. It was one that the child had left behind when staying with them!

Girlzroolz · 15/12/2020 21:57

My darling granny was a master re-gifter. To her credit, she was insistent she didn’t need presents. We just couldn’t not give her things for Xmas/birthdays, etc.

The family joke was that she’d immediately give her gifts to her neighbour, a widow with a large family. Every time.

I got cross with this when I was about 13, since I’d started spending my own money on family presents. So I gave granny a set of lovely French soaps- with her initials carved into each one with my maths compass!!

I remember the gasp and red faces when I proudly pointed out that even Mrs Campbell next door would have trouble finding a relative with the exact matching initials!

Phyzzy · 15/12/2020 21:58

My SIL has never been very generous in gift buying. I've opened many a second hand paperback for Christmas. The best one though was when she wrapped up and gave me a book I had lent her. I know it was the same copy as I'd bought it from a charity shop and it still had the 50p price sticker on.

Puppamumma · 15/12/2020 22:01

My cousin's wife regifted us a nice scented candle we try to pick things we think people will like .She is so bloody stingy but FFS if you regift don't give the person who has sent you the gift the same one back.

Latenightreader · 15/12/2020 22:06

Among other presents, my mother once gave me a beautiful box of chopsticks and bowls. Unfortunately it was the same one a friend had given me the previous year... I had been back home at the time of the first gift, and had put it in the loft with the rest of my kitchen equipment until I moved out. The box must have slid off my pile in Mum’s cluttered loft. She has form for buying things for people and losing them for years. I never told her!

Swipe left for the next trending thread