The psychology of regifting your gifts you get for Christmas – Wall Street Journal

Christmas is the time of excess and many of us are starting to feel profound guilt about how wasteful our consumer-driven society is. It is also the time when we all want to be generous and buy gifts for the people we care for. But not all the gifts we buy or receive may be appreciated. Who does not have an ugly jumper or tie from a granny, those extra socks that you will never wear, bottles of sweet wine that will never touch your lips and those gift sets with bath bubbles and shower gels that you will never use, stashed away in your cupboard. So, is it okay to regift the goodies that you received over Christmas? Many of us feel too guilty to give somebody else a gift that was chosen with care for us,  but it may have become more acceptable in an era where recycling or upcycling has become the trend. I posed this question to a group of millennials and they all thought regifting was fine. If you do regift, you should probably be careful in not giving the gift to somebody who presented it to you and if it is something really special and chosen with care; it is probably not acceptable to regift. According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, the original giver may not be as offended as you thought they may be. – Linda van Tilburg

The case for regifting: Many think the move is shameful — but research suggests the problem is all in the regifter's head