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As I was sitting here wrapping a gift for a dear friend this morning, I stopped and thought “she didn’t give me this, did she??”

I’m a re-gifter, I’ll admit it. Can anyone really say that they have NEVER re-gifted? Never? Really?? I think I can safely blame my re-gifting characteristic on my mother. She was a single parent, trying to make ends meet, so when gifts would come in to our home, if we didn’t really NEED them or couldn’t use them, she would wrap them from us and give them to others. Kinda sucked because I remember things that I LIKED going away, but, I think the shame of not being able to give to someone else was far more important.

Anyway – so I re-gift. Is that wrong? Mind you, I buy A LOT. I re-gift a lot less these days because the friends that I have give me good stuff. And, I think now that I am getting older, I appreciate things a lot more than I did before. But there are some people that I get gifts from – mostly family and distant friends who maybe don’t know my taste or my style or my size, so, they give me things that try as I might – I just cannot use. Big thing for me is necklaces and bracelets – I don’t think skinny people know that fat people have bigger necks and bigger wrists than you skinnybutts. So those cute little boxed sets that come out at Christmas time with a necklace and earrings – not so much…the necklace won’t fit on my big, fat ankle much less my neck and the earrings, well, they should stay with the matching necklace! So those always go in to “the pile”. I’m also very picky when it comes to scents – let me just say I hate the smell of vanilla scented anything. And here’s why: everybody and their mother has a vanilla scented can of poop spray, potpourri or a candle in their bathroom. So you give me vanilla lotion – I think BATHROOM/POOP – and I just can’t like it….no way, no how. Oh, and remember last year when I was losing all that weight? – I had a friend who gave me a Betty Crocker chocolate calendar. The thing had a chocolate baked good staring you in the face every single day – that was just wrong on so many levels.

I have also been known to re-gift gifts that my kids have gotten. Yes, I have. But it’s ONLY when things are too small for them, or too young for them. Come on – my son is in 1st grade and people are giving him the little puffy vinyl baby books – WHAT??

I also re-gift because I think while I do not like/want/need the gift, this person probably would. So I don’t re-gift just to dump more junk in to your lap, I did it because I thought you would take more joy out of it than I did. I guess what I’m saying dear friend, is that if you happen to open a present from me this year and it’s something YOU gave me (ROTFL), I’m sorry – but I think you would like it more than me.