Unwanted Christmas Gifts (Return - Regift - Guilt Clutter...)

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Unwanted Christmas Gifts (Return - Regift - Guilt Clutter...)

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Started 1 year ago by 365lessthings
Latest reply from irishbell
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365lessthings
Member

No doubt there are a number of folks out there with gifts that they received during the holiday season that really didn't suit their needs/wants.
I would be interested to know what is the most popular approach to dealing with these gifts...

Return them to the store.
Re-gift them to someone else during the year.
Keep them out of guilt and allow them to clutter up your house.
Sell them on ebay or at your next garage sale.
Donate them.

I know you are probably thinking "why would keeping them out of guilt be popular", but the fact is it happens a lot. It will be interesting to see how often this is the case.

Posted 1 year ago #
needtocleanhouse
Member

Those items with gift receipts back to the stores (to me gift receipts indicate the giver doesn't mind if you return the item and is making it easier for you to do so)

Give away. Usually every Christmas I receive gifts like clothing that doesn't fit or is nice but not on me. If there is no gift receipt or store box or tag, then I find someone who likes the item and will wear it as it looks great on them (but not me). These types of gifts I try and give away right away, like the next day or so.

I have received special expensive perfume which is not me and very floral. Strong floral perfumes give me a headache and make me nauseous; yet I hold on to the gift because its meaning and giver was/is special to me.

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

i've managed to eliminate gifts that cannot be consumed.
food, drink, candles, flowers, music, books.....all are delightedly received.
this has required lots of repetitive training of friends and family.
anything else is donated to charity or offered to friends immediately.

Posted 1 year ago #
Jude2004
Member

I've only ever returned one item: a pink sweater that my grandmother gave me. I hate pink. That was the last Christmas gift she ever gave me, so I manage to feel guilty about it a lot, even though she died in 1986.

This year, my mother gave each of her children $5,000 (U.S.) and each of her grandchildren $1,000 (U.S.). That's what I call a useful present. But usually she gives horrible homemade crocheted socks as presents, and they end up in the charity give away box (just in case someone *somewhere* likes horrible homemade crocheted socks).

Posted 1 year ago #
Rosa
Member

Donate. Donate donate donate.

We got very few of those gifts this year, thankfully - mostly used books & CDs (I actually like used, but some I'd already read or already owned.) So they just went back to the thrift store. No guilt!

Posted 1 year ago #
needtocleanhouse
Member

Jude2004 I also know about carrying guilt for a long time. This unclutterer feels you are absolved of your guilt; if only I could absolve myself of mine.

Posted 1 year ago #
365lessthings
Member

Jude2004 - Wow your mother certainly made up for all those unwanted horrible homemade socks this year. Please don't waste another moment being guilty about that pink sweater, do you think your grandmother would want you to feel bad about it. I don't think so, she is probably smiling down on you and wondering what she was thinking when she bought it for you. Maybe she inspired your Mom to give out the cash this year instead of the homemade socks. Only remember the happy times.

Posted 1 year ago #
SunshineR
Member

ntc: I am making my way through my own things, plus many belongings of two generations before me. And on this journey, I've noticed that I started to feel lighter and happier as I released more and more of the things (it has taken 19 years so far, since my mom passed away). My mom was very sentimental about things.

Sending you encouragement and permission to put your guilt aside.

Posted 1 year ago #
Mimi
Member

i donate gifts as soon as possible. we get a lot of gifts at work and sometimes we even wonder what that items are. this year i thought someone gave us a new cellphone, but it was a cellphonelookalike that was an alarm clock with a thermometer in it. pffft. donated!

Posted 1 year ago #
lottielot
Member

donate :) We never get receipts, and when I've taken things back without I've found the giver has inevitably bought the stuff on sale at a huge discount, so you get almost nothing back! Not worth it. I'm too lazy to ebay anything or organise a carboot sale, so I'm happy to pass the things along to charity. Occasionally (especially if it's kids presents in packaging) I'll re-gift them. I've never been one to feel the guilt much, but nowadays I am positively ruthless!

Posted 1 year ago #
Mimi
Member

PS: i think donating can reduce the guilt of not liking the gift. if i don´t like the gift but donate it, i am sure that someone who likes it will get it.

Posted 1 year ago #
JuliaJayne
Member

My husband and I had to take back the clothes we got because the sizes were wrong. Someone gave my husband a DVD that didn't interest either one of us, so we gave to his father to watch, who he was given instructions to get rid of it when he finished watching it. (It was a collection of tv shows from his generation, so he was happy to oblige.)

Posted 1 year ago #
Parsifal
Member

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! I've started asking asking family members to donate to charity on behalf of myself and my wife if they feel the need to give us a gift at Christmas. We certainly don't need anymore knickknacks, and it makes us feel good to know that someone who IS in need will have a better holiday. Of course, we enjoy spending time with the family and we do keep pictures and personal mementos, but asking for small charitable donations is definitely cutting down on the post-holiday clutter blues.

Posted 1 year ago #
JuliaJayne
Member

I tried that with my family, Parsifal, and they were offended. Some people enjoy giving gifts.

Posted 1 year ago #
candy
Member

Anything unwanted is off to charity directly, or regifted if I can think of anyone who wants it.

Posted 1 year ago #
Rosa
Member

Yeah, I fought the "please give us less crap" fight with the gift-giving parts of the family for about 3 years, and just gave up in dejection.

Plus, i discovered this week that 4 out of 5 women in my craft group have families (like mine) that ask for a list of wants, and then buy random crap that's not on it.

So anyway, I figured it out: they aren't giving gifts to make me happy, they're doing it just because they feel like it. And that took *all* the guilt out of disposing of them. I'm not responsible for their feeling good about the gift if they won't put the effort into listening to me so *I* will feel good about the gift.

Posted 1 year ago #
vjb
Member

I only got one 'gift' this year (apart from consumables, gift cards, etc), and it was two eco-friendly pet bowls. I already have a nice set of bowls for my dog; my parents (who dogsit most often) also have a nice set. I tried to regift them to my housemate's parents, but apparently THEY already have a set of bowls too!

Up until this moment, I felt stuck with them as guilt clutter. But really I should just donate them and not think another thing of it – someone else will love having them! :)

Posted 1 year ago #
atomic_flamethrowing_vagina
Member

I had to regift this Christmas present I received at work this year. See, at work, we have this 'Secret Santa' thing where you draw some coworker's name from this bag and you have to get a gift to the coworker whose name you drew from that bag. Well, the gift I got was a very very inappropriate gift that I didn't appreciate one bit. It was this Christmasy looking bag that had a bunch of these little novelty toys one would buy in some porn shop or some place like that. On top of myself not thinking it was one bit appropriate, me bringing home crap like that is totally out of the question due to the fact that there is a 4 year old, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old living where I live at. I won't take the chance of them finding & seeing that stuff. I was quite upset that someone would even think of giving me something like that. It would have been better if that person didn't get me anything at all. Also, I am 99.999% sure that the person who gave me that gift for that whole 'Secret Santa' thing was the coworker who coordinated that whole Secret Santa thing in the first place. See, right up to when I got the gift, she kept asking me about that whole Secret Santa thing practically every time I turned around. It wasn't too hard of a task to simply put 2 & 2 together to figure out who gave me that gift. It's like what Shakespeare said, "methinks the lady doth protest too loudly." In retaliation, I simply put a makeshift gift tag back onto the gift & wrote her name on it & put it back into the break room. When I left work, I noticed that it was gone. That's the very last time I will ever take part in ANYTHING having to do with any coworker outside of just doing my job. It's kind of f&*#ed up that people can't even be nice for Christmas. The only thing keeping people from going postal at their workplace more often is having to go to prison for doing that. Merry F*&#in' Christmas!!!

Posted 5 months ago #
DivorcedMotherOf3
Member

*Dies laughing at the above post for three completely separate reasons.*

Oh, the irony. O_o ^^

Posted 5 months ago #
bandicoot
Member

dmo3, o good, it wasn't just me!

Posted 5 months ago #

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