The gift that keeps on giving will become the tax that keeps on taxing

Really, in this economy, I hope my friends won’t spend money that they could use for their own needs. I’ve been telling my family, instead of gifts for me, donate to a charity. It would make me happy to know someone who could use some help will get it thanks to donations at Christmas.

Call me corny, but my favorite parts of the holidays are the music and the decorative lights on homes in our town. Oh, and cookies.

http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html

Gift or regift–it’s the feeling in the heart that gives that really matters. The last paragraph of the story:

The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

So, basically, my fundamental premise is to re-gift very carefully and asking if it’s alright to re-gift something is probably the best way to go about it.

But, if you have a gift that you would throw away, and you know someone who would like it, it seems silly not to give them the pleasure.

We make too much of things anyway.

Good post, Pat. Makes us all think!

One of the girls is now a social worker and the other a teacher. Re-gifting was perhaps a contributor to their wonderful development during their formative years.

It used to be that when a couple got married, they would receive as gifts things that they truly needed, regardless if whether it was new, used or even homemade and they would appreciate it. In fact if it was homemade, it might be even more appreciated. And where are we now?

If you think of giving money, remember that this is a form of re-gifting even if you change cash into a check, since someone had to give it to you so you could give it to someone else.

So for me, if I give someone a gift and they do not like it once, then it is OK if they return it for something they want or if they cannot return it they can re-gift it. If it happens more than three times, then I am aware I do not know what they like, therefore there is no reason for me to continue to give them gifts and cause them all of that inconvenience of having to return it or find someone who might like it.

Rich

As usual, I love your comments. And I like to believe that we are trying to recreate that traditional meaning, but it is increasingly difficult as the merchandising starts well before Thanksgiving now.

They might as well not give gifts at all, but they would think that was unthinkable.

I would like to re-gift the stimulus bill to Nancy Pelosi and bho the fraud to his former IL state congressional district, where he, ME-chelle and kids can live in cold-water/no-heat housing through the winter, and stay there until 1/20/2013.

We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts, we travel afar . . .

Though I admit that at first it was hard to recognize the 3 kings in your ‘toon, in their clever modern disguises . . . But they’re still at it:

blockquote>In the conventional version of the Christmas story, the wise men or magi:

* Gaspar,
* Melchior and
* Balthasar

started the gift-giving custom of Christmas by bringing gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child on Epiphany.

And so now the “gifts” are “regifts” of unwanted artifacts and migratory orphan fruitcakes that “travel afar . . . ” Well, it’s been over 2000 years, and at least we still remember to try to re-enact that magic time . . .

I, too, do not re-gift. I occasionally give the unused things to the local charity but I don’t give them to friends or relatives.