Monday Morning Mirth
ReGIFT
from WORDSPY (09/27/02): “Today’s word originated with that always reliable source of neologisms, the TV show Seinfeld. Regift (and the noun regifter) appeared in the episode titled The Label Maker, which first aired on January 19, 1995.”
PROOF (positive that everything I know, and you too, I learned on TV!):
Here’s the script snippet where regift was used in that Seinfeld episode (regifter was used earlier in the show; note, as well, yet another neologism: degift):George: The wedding is off. Now you can go to
the Super Bowl.Jerry: I can’t call Tim Whatley and ask for the
tickets back.George: You just gave them to him two days ago,
he’s gotta give you a grace period.Jerry: Are you even vaguely familiar with the concept of giving? There’s no grace period.
George: Well, didn’t he regift the label maker?
Jerry: Possibly.
George: Well, if he can regift, why can’t you degift?
Jerry: You may have a point.
George: I have a point, I have a point.”
OOOHHhh, my family knows me so well! I opened a shipped box from my Sis and found the above lovely pahck-ahge. Now, if you’ve been reading CK for awhile, you can find a Christmas theme in this label…
Every year I receive a Singing Toy! Last year, it was this, shown in this little movie. Be afraid – be very AFRAID.
There has been a veritable collection through these doors, and I must say the word THROUGH, because the biggest Joke/Gift of all is they ALWAYS become a ReGift. I had a caroling stuffed frog that was cycled around for YEARS and was only retired when my friend’s elderly Mom REFUSED to ReGift! She loved that Frog, with his croaky Jingle Bells, et al… and roundly told us all off when we informed her it was HER turn to pass it along…
I am dying of curiousity about this package but other family etiquette (MUST wait until Christmas Eve) prevents me from tearing into it. So I’m going to have to satisfy my craving by asking YOU:
What’s the best ReGift you’ve given/received?
I’m outing my boyfriend as the king of the regift–last year he gave me a George Foreman grill that had just hours before been given to him by his aunt! I think it’s funny, really. Lots of men, and mine especially, don’t have the gifting gene.
We were recently given 2 gifts that friends that had recently attended a pharmacy convention. They don’t drink (and we do) so they brought over a case of Reidel Wine glasses. 2 for each kind of wine. They also gave us a kit of BBQ utensils that come in a huge wooden case. They had just purchased a set of there own, and said that they were too big for their hands! Luckily for us, my fiance is a bigger guy and was quite happy to take them.
I was given a teapot where the handle was the stem of these big red flowers and when you opened the teapot to pour the water out there was a big red hummingbird attached … so when you closed it, it looked like the hummingbird was eating from the flower. Hope that makes sense … anyway, NO ONE wanted that teapot, it must have been regifted 10 times before it got to me … but I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! And kept it!!!! And use it!!!
Two years in a row, I took last year’s present from my MIL to the White Elephant exchange at work, and both of those years received something heinous that I gave her. The first year she loved it. She hasn’t opened this year’s (A music box with Santa and the little drummer boy that, inexplicably, plays O Christmas Tree) but I’m sure she’ll love it just as much.
I don’t think I’ve ever received a ‘re-gift’. I wasn’t brought up that way! :-)
P.S. I’m over 50!
My sisters and I often regift. We usually give each other gag/white elephant gifts every year for Christmas and often one of us will get a gift that was received the previous year. The best one ever: One year I got a real stuffed/taxadermy blow fish. The ugliest thing you EVER saw! Needless to say, I regifted it BACK to one of my other sisters the next year!
My in-laws are re-gifters but they wait a year or two before doing so. I just give them stuff I like because I know I will get it back… sneaky I know but why not?
For our wedding 15 years ago, we received an enameled stockpot, which in of itself wasn’t bad. However, we knew it was a regift because the box was in late 60’s colors and the women in the picture had these huge beehive hairdo’s.
Then last year from one of my 4th grade students, I received these 2 yellow pillows. Think of the brightest yellow you can and intensify the color even more! They also were embroidered with these little cartoon cats. You needed sunglasses to look at these, and even my dog turned up his nose. I took them to a white elephant exchange, and no one wanted them, so we decided to give them to the couple that failed to show up to the party!
For years, we sent the same fruitcake back and forth to my brother-in-law in Phoenix. Naturally, we sent “normal” gifts as well, but the brothers’ distaste of fruitcake instigated this crazy cake addition to the pile of presents.
Like Marg, I don’t think I’ve ever regifted…also because I wasn’t raised that way (I’m 26, so it can’t be entirely dependent on age.) I think the closest I’ve come is either donating unwanted items to Goodwill, or leaving them with my parents when I went off to college. There were plenty of tacky knick-knacks that were conveniently “forgotten” when I packed up my worldly possessions.
When I was a kid, a pair of tiny lacey red panties and a tacky ceramic buddha made their way (separately, of course) around the family for years. It was so much fun, cause if you weren’t giving them, you would have completely forgotten about them from year to year – always warranting a huge laugh.
Ok, don’t know if this counts or not, but a few years ago on Christmas morning two pink flamingos showed up on our lawn wearing Santa hats. Well, we found out one of my long-time friends and neighbors did it, so the next year we did the same to her and dressed them in sunglasses and pearl necklaces. They have popped up around the neighborhood each Christmas on someone’s lawn, sporting new looks for 4 yrs now.
P.S. I looove the wrapping paper on your future regift.
My family has been passing around the same fruitcake for 7 years. Unfortunately it is an eigth of its original size–a chunk salvaged from the jaws of two family dogs.
I just mailed a regift to a friend in Argentina yesterday, an out-of-print book he’s been looking for that I had and didn’t like.
Our scifi club does a White Elephant raffle for charity every Halloween, folks donate wrapped items and tickets are a quarter each. We got a great floor lamp that way once, and gave away duplicate books (ones we both had before we got married) and VHS movies we now have on DVD.
I’m probably too late to answer this one. I’ve attended quite a few cocktail parties this year and always brought some of my favorite, unusual wine. I had a cocktail party in December and received several bottles back. Kind of weird but I was, like, yay!, because it is after all my favorite unsual wine.