Bodacious Boomer

Tis the season to be gifting. And with gifting always comes stress. What can I get them? Will they like it? Did I spend enough? What if they don’t like it? Is my gift as good as so-and so’s? How will I pay for it next year? It’s enough to make you feel like a Grinch.

I don’t have a lot of those seasonally stressful questions this year. My holiday gift giving list has shrunken considerably. Now I only will gifting people I truly like. It feels liberating; and I’ll be saving myself a considerable amount of time and stress. Years ago, my friends and I from the olden days (pre-marriage), all decided that we’d just do a Christmas goodies exchange. We all get together with spouses in tow in December and trade bags and tins of decadent delights sure to make cardiologists and dentists smile. A good time is had by all, and on the way home, the conversation always includes a discussion on how people have changed in the last year. (Admit it. You know you all do it).Yes, we’re all friends; but looks can change a lot in a year-especially at this age.

For at least three years my brother, Amanda’s uncle, always gave her the same thing- a toy manicure kit. She was 17 when this started. He never really gave any thought as to what he gave her; that’s why he kept giving her the same thing. The only good thing about it is that if she drops out of college, at least she open a cheapo nail shop. Why he didn’t just give her a $5 gift card from Blockbuster Video I do not know.

One question that I’ve seen discussed a myriad of times the last few weeks is the topic of re-gifting. According to everything that I’ve been reading this week, it’s now OK to re-gift. The two big pitfalls to avoid are regifting an item to the person who gave it to you and re-gifting something that you’ve used. So, re-gifiting that heinous happy Buddha lamp with a fish bowl in the base to someone who loves kitschy stuff? Right.  Re-gifting the water pik, you tried once and decided it was a waste of time? Wrong, very wrong.  Wallet pop had a funny article about it that spells out all the do’s and don’ts..

It seems to me like the word re-gift has been out there forever. Apparently though the term re-gifting was first used in the  Seinfeld episode, the label maker. Check it out from about 2 min. in to 4 min.

I wouldn’t mind if I was regifted. In fact, knowing my brother, I’d be amazed if I wasn’t. But it’s fine with me, especially if it was something I really needed or wanted. And yes, I have regifted- once. It was a watch. It was a nice watch actually, and a name brand too, just not my style. So re-gift away guilt free. Just make sure that you’ve kept good notes on where that gift came from.