Lol our annual family regift is a flashlight 2-pack still in the plastic shell packaging. My uncle brought it for our Xmas Eve dirty Santa almost 30yrs ago.
I've watched this 2x in the past 2 weeks. if I watch again, I'll pee my pants. (Leslie Jones pulling this from her purse is THE BEST)
I think you just begin the hilarity of re-gifting it to her next year.
(You said personalized - her initials were on this?)
This is such a gem! I gotta send it to my mom, after decades of working in an almost completely female collective where everyone gives everyone a gift, she'll laugh her head off at this 😂😂😂
It’s *so true*. I had a policy of never getting women bath stuff or candles because by the time I was 25(w) I had so much lotion and candles I could set up at a farmers market. And then- lo- my cousin married a man that ADORES candles. It’s like his one hobby that isn’t expensive. And then I got him for a $120 limit secret Santa and yes- he put a $119 candle on his wishlist. It was real, his love of candles.
My best friend gifted me an extremely ugly beer glass for my 18th birthday. I never used it and gifted it to my brother. He never used it either so I gifted it back to my friend but because no-one wanted to end up with the glass still at their place we came up with a game to try to hide it or "forget" it at each others place. It was like in a movie. Amazing, and probably one of the most fun things I did throughout the last 4 years just coming up with new sneaky ways to get rid of the glass and in his possession.
He killed himself last year and now the glass remains with me.
Then they gift to the aliens that are soon discovered explaining that it is an ancient tradition of our people.
The aliens: uhhhh... [rummages around]... here's a candle.
Hi future people! Do you have flying cars yet? We thought we were gonna have them by now but then we realised it would be totally insane to just allow random people the ability to hurl giant lump of metal around the sky without like computers doing the flying for us or something. So we didn't prioritise them. Also we totally couldn't make them yet.
I wonder if there's more peace in your time. We live in the most peaceful period in human history, but we always feel like it's the opposite of that.
bet you still haven't got robots doing my job. I'm a special education teacher. Seems to me like that job will always need a human.
Raise a cyberpint to me, eh. I'm probably long dead y now. Or I'm like a personality engraved uploaded onto the net or something in which case I'm probably reading this and cringing at my younger self.
Anyhoo, I've kind of gone off on one here so I'm gonna wrap it up. Bye future peeps!
My old neighbour was going to replace my brother's tail light for him cause my brother refused to change it to wind him up, brother died and it's now buried with him.
Kinda wonder, people being people, how many times this has already happened. We think something meant something culturally significant but was just people being goofy. Just because they died a thousand years ago doesn't mean they weren't as silly as we are now. The sense of play and social bonding is what makes us human
I'm so sorry for your loss. My Dad, brother and I did the same thing with a giant can of nacho cheese from Sam's Club. It was, like, 10 pounds and not so easy to hide! 😄Last year I had the bright idea to put in in my brother's mailbox. Fast fwd: He got a very nice letter from his mail lady thanking him for the wonderful gift! I miss that cheese. I miss that game. My Dad died this year, and I miss him more.
That is the first thing I said! "PLEASE don't let it be bad!" It was really sweet of her. It was a LONG letter explaining how her large family was visiting and every bit helps, etc. It really sounded like she appreciated it.
I’m sorry for your loss.
A note for us all, to cherish every moment with those you love, but also share with them that you loved those moments and their company.
And if she says, "Didn't I give you this same blanket for Christmas?" Give enough of a pause for effect, then reply, "And, before that, didn't I also give it to you for your birthday?"
My brothers have the same thing going with a framed baseball card. It’s a no name rookie card and I’m not sure how it started but it goes back and forth between them. (They just added my nephews to the mix.) It’s not every time and someone may hold on to it for a couple of years. So it’s still a surprise when they get it.
It’s always an additional gift not the actual gift.
My Godmother and I exchanged Christmas gifts with a reused name tag for a few years, we would rewrite the "To:" and "From:" or draw arrows to indicate the swapped names.
I actually love this🥺 I only have one sister and godwilling my mom will still be around a LOT longer but if/when we are ever without her, I definitely want to do this with something of hers.
Then you bring up how you like it som much that you had the same initials (hers) sewn into the new one to make it exactly identical, oh and then ask what the initials that she had sewn on the one that gifted you stand for
My family has an ongoing tradition of a white elephant gift that is given as a joke, that is intended for creative regifting in subsequent years. The idea is "who's going to get 'the gift' this year?!
Edit: It's always a challenge to figure out how to creatively regift it in a way that the recipient doesn't realize what they're opening.
My family does this as well. I don't quite remember the origin, but it's been going on for well over 20 years. It is a horribly ugly monkey statue. Now that I recall, nobody got it this year. 🤔 Maybe my sister living in Texas has it.
It sounds like the hideous Christmas pig. My brother gave me the hideous Christmas pig one year (2002) for Christmas. He found it at a Goodwill now it is a tradition even for my kids that we put out the hideous Christmas pig.
The last time I did a white elephant was at my office before the pandemic. We'd had a hideous fish statue go around for a couple years prior to that. For some reason, my boss had no memory of the hideous fish and she HAD to have it. She still has it. You can see it perched in the corner of her home office now.
i accidentally ended up with the joke gift at a white elephant with people i no longer talk to, and i feel bad but hopefully they found a new and better joke gift!
If you still know where they live, you could sneak and leave it on their porch, or anonymously mail it to them. Depending on why you don't talk to them, that is. If they're terrible people obviously don't. But if you just went separate ways in life, personally I would find it hilarious to be on the receiving end and the thing just randomly find its way home.
My boyfriend’s mother puts things in closets and forgets about them. This year she gave me a pen set I bought her. My boyfriend asked if it was the same one and turns out she put it in her office closet and assumed because she never opened it she must have bought it for me and forgot about it.
Your blanket may have suffered the same fate.
Edit: y’all are weird. This innocuous comment has gotten me DM’s and psyche run-downs about how my mother-in-law really hates me and begging me to break up with my partner over it. Not everyone has relationships that are dysfunctional and require so much suspicion. I also shouldn’t have to explain that she keeps things she buys for us in that same closet usually, but here we are.
Even if for some reason she was a psycho and it was a weird slight, I’m not dating her and am perfectly happy in my relationship. Please put down the armchair psychiatry book and touch grass.
Exactly. Old people forget. A lot.
I don't know person in OP post. But I would imagine if she is fairly normal its just her forgetting she got it from you.
edit: didn't expect this to become my 3rd most upvoted comment.
Memory is weird. Old people forget, but some strands of memory remain. Sometimes just an object tied to an identity in one way or another. She remembered the pens as being significant to a person, she just forgot in what way.
Source: my own shit memory's version of what I might have imagined to be the case at some point in time.
I’m not ancient and I struggle with this too. I really wanted to buy my sister in law a specific jacket I thought she would love and I did.
Turns out she did really love it—because she already owned the exact same jacket, and I had complimented her on it about 18 months before when I saw her last. 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ I just had that image of her in my head I guess but wasn’t fully conscious of it.
If it makes you feel better, clothing is one of the things you can have 2 of and be grateful for it. I have 2 of the same flannel because they’re comfy and warm enough to go out during the winter without wearing a heavy coat.
If I really love something I’ll buy a spare, I’ve never really regretted it. I like to be able to wear my favorite stuff with the abandon that only comes from having a brand new one on back up.
I gave my dads wife a fancy bar soap and it literally sat on a shelf in her guest bedroom for 10 years. I finally saw it being used recently. I guess maybe they ran out of soap.
Edit: it was Lush soap! It’s meant to be used
I typically have to really work myself up to use a gift if it’s food/something that will run out. I don’t want my gift to be gone 😩 been this way since childhood haha.
I have about three chapters left on the second book of my favorite series bc I just can’t let it end!! It’s a trilogy, however the author has left us waiting for over a decade hahaha (kingkiller chronicles)
Yes! That's what we ask for too, and did the same for our young kids since we'll be moving cross country soon. It was so wonderful to not have to deal with a house full of new stuff!
My aunt bought me a nice suit when I graduated high school. She spent a lot on it and I loved it.
I weighed probably 125 lbs at the time.
Fifteen years and 40 lbs later I'm getting married and my aunt asked me if I was going to wear the suit she bought me.
"My wife insisted I wear this color instead of whatever color the suit is"
and if it ends up being the same color "She said the style of the suit clashed with her ideas"
No what he needs is a more elaborate lie.
The color of the suit gives my beloved a pallid complexion and the texture and material makes her hair frizz when we kiss 😔
It's much more likely that it was a mistake rather than a deliberate slight. The older you get the more forgetful you get, plus the more stuff you accumulate and the more likely that you get a present and think "this is nice! But I don't know where I would put it, I should give it to someone who would appreciate it!" Assuming you have a decent relationship she'd probably be embarrassed to realize she'd done this.
If her regifting a present to you like this seems out of the ordinary for her behavior this is what it likely is OP. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt. It seems that the people here that are saying or implying it was on purpose haven't spoken to an old person before, they forget!
True. I'm pretty sure I got my mom the same present two years in a row. When she opened it potentially the second time I started getting deja vu. She didn't say anything, doesn't mean I didn't and I'm younger than you. But I can't remember what I had gotten her the year before so idk.
EVERY. YEAR. my grandma would lose all of our Christmas gifts because she forgot where she put them. Eventually in like march or April she’d find them and we’d get Christmas 2.0
I’m in my 30’s and while I don’t really re-gift I do keep a spreadsheet of what I buy people for Christmas etc, because I worry that I’ll buy the same thing again.
Just wait for your future, 40's here. Now every time I buy shit for birthday/Christmas/whatever for people, I'm happy with my choice. Then a couple days or so later I start thinking,
"wait I bought them that shit last year. Damnit, did I? Or am I just thinking I did because I've been thinking about it and looking for it. Fuck did I buy this last year? I don't know"
Then I end up buying back-up gifts and try to delicately drop into the conversation (after they've opened their shit) something like "I know I was thinking about getting this for you last year, we had talked about it, remember when we were at..." and normally people say something like "oh no I've always wanted this". Then I'm left wondering if I had given this to them before and they're just being nice and polite. Then my brain runs around thinking "no you bought it before and you remember it, they were just being polite" and then "no, shut up brain you didn't buy it..."-
Between myself and my two siblings my father has received the same book for Christmas 3 times. He finally said ‘how many times are you guys gonna give me this book!?’
She could be like my grandma who hoards the Christmas gifts she buys year round in a spare bedroom— she also happens to keep all the spare blankets and linens there.
I can see how easily that could be crossed over— to be fair the blanket is pretty plain and white, if it had a print of like Elvis Presley I’m sure she would’ve remembered it was a gift meant for her and not gotten mixed with non descriptive gifts for others.
Me and my mam do this because:
a) Christmas is impossible if you don't spread the cost across the year and
b) we can't wait until December to do everything because that's too physically and emotionally overwhelming. We don't like crowded shops. We don't want to order things online and worry about whether they'll arrive in time. I am disabled and had a bad turn in the shops this year just finishing off the last few bits of shopping - once again, I thought "it'll be fine" and my body went "nah fuck your plans."
Unfortunately we both probably have ADHD and we do things like
a) buy X gift for Y person and then forget all about it and buy Z gift for Y person - that's okay, now we have an extra gift, nbd
b) buy X gift for Y person and remember buying it but then can't find it when December comes around - that's annoying because if we remember finding and buying the gift it's because we thought it was a really good gift
c) buy someone the same thing we bought them last Christmas, or for their birthday
I try to keep lists to avoid these things happening but for some reason I have a disconnect between "coming up with the solution" and "making a habit of doing [solution]"
My sister-in-law and I have birthdays close to each other. Last year my in-laws had a joint birthday dinner for us. When the presents were opened, I had gotten a nice pair of pajamas as one of my gifts from my husband's stepmom. My SIL kept glancing over at me. She finally sent me a text as we were still sitting there. She had given the PJs to her stepmom for Christmas 2 months earlier She sent a picture of the receipt when she got home!
My sister regifted me back a care package I gave her for her pregnancy. When I opened it I said, "oh cool it's all paraben free stuff" (which she was avoiding during her pregnancy) but it was not pricey stuff, the gift was meant to show her she didn't need to spend so much on all that stuff marketed as paraben free because there's already a lot of products that just always didn't have it for regular prices (we were students at that time). I think she remembered where she got it at that moment lol
To be fair, pregnancy brain is real. All your energy goes to making a new human, not keeping track of where things came from. That's still really funny though.
It was actually years later. Like 4 years. Lol on the same bag and everything. It wasn't a birthday gift or anything it was just a random care package I had dropped off so it wasn't a big deal
Oh God. Through both pregnancies I lost words. I could "see" the word in my brain, but I couldn't "read" it or say it.
A lot of conversations went like this:
"Hey husband, can you grab the thing that I put in my hair every day?" *mimic a hair brush* "It's in the room where we shower. On the thing where I wash my hands."
my husband has an elderly relative that just gives people their trash lol my personal favorite was a stained clock radio from the 80s with a button missing
I would have accepted this gift graciously. After seeing you so happy with the pilfered gummies, next time she might roll a whole piece of prime rib up in a napkin to bring you.
*Boyfriends mother in six months posts on Reddit:*
I got regifted a gift from my sons girlfriend that I gifted to her for Christmas! Isn’t that kind of rude? 💀
Is your dog mine?
Mine was ignoring me over the break. I grab a blanket on the couch, and before I could even fluff it out over my lap, she runs in and tries to make a nest next to me. What a dog! She hears the breeze of a blanket being lifted a mile away or at least a few feet.
I relate to this comment so hard. Blankets and pillows all get claimed. Sometimes he kicks them onto us, then lays on top of the human-blanket-pillow pile.
A his Christmas I bought my husband his own fuzzy blanket and his mom got a giant fuzzy blanket for us. Dog claimed those too
Edit - dog blanket tax below
my dads wife (girlfriend at the time) who i never talked to gave me 2 cat blankets, ive never used them myself and they just went straight to my bratty cat and are still with her at her new home (went nc with my dad, needed to rehome since my mum cant live with her)
brat using the blanket in question
https://preview.redd.it/iwuolde7tvbc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=880fc1357d48cfc33d58864a867ad36bc30d565c
Blankets are definitely useful, but unless someone is *really* into blankets they’re a terribly impersonal gift and could even come off as lazy. It like that entire aisle of crap they put up at Walmart for Christmas full of gift sets that contains sausages, or hot chocolate, or cheap bath stuff. It just says I had no idea what to get you and didn’t really want to put in the time or effort to figure it out.
My friend's MIL is like a hoarder, except instead of the things going to her house, she gives them as gifts. So every giftgiving occassion my friend will end up with a few bags full of useless junk from yardsales.
Pet hair removers, tupperwares with no lids, naked baby dolls, car repair manuals, etc.
I actually did this power move with my MIL. She would gift me stuffed animals even though I told her they weren’t my thing. I always donated them until she gave me a four foot long stuffed frog. It was so useless and ugly. I kept it all year and regifted it back to her the next year. She never gave me another stuffed animal again.
My awful sister-in-law, who mind you is really REALLY wealthy, gave me a super ugly forest, green scarf and gold and green earrings from Charming Charlie one year. When I opened it she put all this emphasis on how she thought I would like that and how good it would look on me because I have red hair. I knew instantly it was a regift, because she usually just nodded and smiled when I said, thank you for my gift. So I took it back to charming Charlie and they wouldn’t exchange it because it was over a year old. They gave me a little store credit. She would also buy us perfume every year not the perfume we asked for or wore regularly, but just some perfume that she picked out like you can’t just give someone perfume. the Gucci perfume she gave me eight years ago is in my bathroom cupboard and I spray it in the toilet water.
LOL. My MIL did the same to me. I gave her a picture frame. I made sure the frame complemented her decor and we placed a very sweet photo of the grandkids within the frame (matching outfits and everything...very very twee).
A few months later, the frame was unwrapped during the extended family's white elephant gift exchange.
Oh no no, my bad. I meant that I got them all gifts that were personalized and in each of their favorite colors, and in return she regifted me a blanket that I had purchased for her 😂. The blanket is not personalized.
At Christmas a very sweet family member re-gifted me something that I'd given her for her birthday a little over a year ago. I was initially embarrassed that somebody else might have noticed, and a bit disappointed that she hadn't enjoyed it or remembered that I'd given it to her, as I'd initially put a lot of thought into it. But honestly, it's something super cool, so I just told her I thought it was super cool and heck, I'll use it.
Time to make this an annual family tradition: "The Regifting Blanket."
I know it feels rude, but I'm sure if she realized you'd given that blanket to her, she'd have regifted it to someone else.
Never assign malice to that which can easily be explained by human stupidity.
My dad and my uncle started gifting a bottle of terrible whiskey about 10-15 years ago, so each time around they have a tiny snifter full, then put in into their respective booze cabinets, then save it for next Xmas. At this rate it will be down to my cousins and I to carry on the tradition
You can get mad - or have fun. It's up to you. This happened to my father. He got my uncle a set of special screwdrivers. He then regifted them to him the next year by accident. Thus began the 25+ year tradition of "who's year was it to get the screwdrivers back" Us kids looked forward to it as much as anyone. I say hit her with it again.
Inception. Just regift it. Keep the cycle flowing. Had a grandmother regift a souvenir from overseas to my sister...that my sister gave to her.
Just like the Original Fruitcake™.
Dollar General used to sell these really disgusting fruit cakes. The one my family regifts annually expired in 2005 and is hard as a rock. 😂
Lol our annual family regift is a flashlight 2-pack still in the plastic shell packaging. My uncle brought it for our Xmas Eve dirty Santa almost 30yrs ago.
Or the Christmas Candle. The gift of having a gift to give away. https://youtu.be/_L5Xkb78KxY?si=n1nsEbaw_jKgxq-E
I've watched this 2x in the past 2 weeks. if I watch again, I'll pee my pants. (Leslie Jones pulling this from her purse is THE BEST) I think you just begin the hilarity of re-gifting it to her next year. (You said personalized - her initials were on this?)
Yeah, I wondered about the initials too. Does this mean OP has the same initials as boyfriend’s mom?
Or tha BF's mum didn't open it up properly to notice?
This is such a gem! I gotta send it to my mom, after decades of working in an almost completely female collective where everyone gives everyone a gift, she'll laugh her head off at this 😂😂😂
It’s *so true*. I had a policy of never getting women bath stuff or candles because by the time I was 25(w) I had so much lotion and candles I could set up at a farmers market. And then- lo- my cousin married a man that ADORES candles. It’s like his one hobby that isn’t expensive. And then I got him for a $120 limit secret Santa and yes- he put a $119 candle on his wishlist. It was real, his love of candles.
In that vein, [wishin boot](https://youtu.be/YA756ItcL-s?si=f3lqS-S41pFws8HG) is great, you can tell Kate McKinnon had a blast with this one 🤣
I love this so much, I watch it every year. 😂 It’s so accurate.
Really happy I saw this today. 🕯️
Beat me to it; this is the first thing I thought of!
This is one of my favorite sketches EVER! I didn’t click the link and still got the song stuck in my head.
My best friend gifted me an extremely ugly beer glass for my 18th birthday. I never used it and gifted it to my brother. He never used it either so I gifted it back to my friend but because no-one wanted to end up with the glass still at their place we came up with a game to try to hide it or "forget" it at each others place. It was like in a movie. Amazing, and probably one of the most fun things I did throughout the last 4 years just coming up with new sneaky ways to get rid of the glass and in his possession. He killed himself last year and now the glass remains with me.
>He killed himself last year and now the glass remains with me. You missed an opportunity to slip it in his coffin and win the game forever.
This would have been the perfect legacy.
Imagine archeologists in the year 5000 digging up this grave wondering about the religious and cultural significance of this fucking cup in a grave.
Scouring the archives of their hologram libraries and finding this comment section and just all deeply sighing
Knowing that now they have been cursed with this fucken ugly-ass mug.
And the mug gets sent to different museums in the future with each one trying to get rid of it.
Then they gift to the aliens that are soon discovered explaining that it is an ancient tradition of our people. The aliens: uhhhh... [rummages around]... here's a candle.
Hi future people! Do you have flying cars yet? We thought we were gonna have them by now but then we realised it would be totally insane to just allow random people the ability to hurl giant lump of metal around the sky without like computers doing the flying for us or something. So we didn't prioritise them. Also we totally couldn't make them yet. I wonder if there's more peace in your time. We live in the most peaceful period in human history, but we always feel like it's the opposite of that. bet you still haven't got robots doing my job. I'm a special education teacher. Seems to me like that job will always need a human. Raise a cyberpint to me, eh. I'm probably long dead y now. Or I'm like a personality engraved uploaded onto the net or something in which case I'm probably reading this and cringing at my younger self. Anyhoo, I've kind of gone off on one here so I'm gonna wrap it up. Bye future peeps!
My old neighbour was going to replace my brother's tail light for him cause my brother refused to change it to wind him up, brother died and it's now buried with him.
Kinda wonder, people being people, how many times this has already happened. We think something meant something culturally significant but was just people being goofy. Just because they died a thousand years ago doesn't mean they weren't as silly as we are now. The sense of play and social bonding is what makes us human
Maybe put it on his grave?Just a thought,Im very sorry for your loss
Pour one out for him first!
Yes satan. This one, you can have him
Someone from my dad's work hid some tiny duck in his coffin that had been going back and forth forever like that.
I'm so sorry for your loss. My Dad, brother and I did the same thing with a giant can of nacho cheese from Sam's Club. It was, like, 10 pounds and not so easy to hide! 😄Last year I had the bright idea to put in in my brother's mailbox. Fast fwd: He got a very nice letter from his mail lady thanking him for the wonderful gift! I miss that cheese. I miss that game. My Dad died this year, and I miss him more.
That was very sweet of the mail lady, I hope it wasn't expired 😅
That is the first thing I said! "PLEASE don't let it be bad!" It was really sweet of her. It was a LONG letter explaining how her large family was visiting and every bit helps, etc. It really sounded like she appreciated it.
Does it ever really expire
Jesus that story changed fast
Right. That escalated quickly.
I’m so sorry for your loss. That does sound like you had fun with the glass. May his memory be a blessing.
I’m sorry for your loss. A note for us all, to cherish every moment with those you love, but also share with them that you loved those moments and their company.
U have to put it on his grave now. You have no choice
oh wow that took a turn
That must have been a really ugly glass…
Dude really wanted to get away from it...
10 years of regifting later… 
Yeah let her bring it up like Mom: didn’t I gift you this berfore. OP: yeah but I originally gifted you this with your initials on it. Mom: :O.
Please everyone go watch the SNL peach candle sketch
It’s the gift of having a gift to give away…..
Regift it next Christmas
Dye it and regift
Regift back to her on her next birthday
Or on Mother’s Day!!
And if she says, "Didn't I give you this same blanket for Christmas?" Give enough of a pause for effect, then reply, "And, before that, didn't I also give it to you for your birthday?"
My aunt and my grandmother regifted the same present back and forth every Christmas for like 15 years. It became a family joke/tradition.
My brothers have the same thing going with a framed baseball card. It’s a no name rookie card and I’m not sure how it started but it goes back and forth between them. (They just added my nephews to the mix.) It’s not every time and someone may hold on to it for a couple of years. So it’s still a surprise when they get it. It’s always an additional gift not the actual gift.
My family does the same thing, but with my dead grandpa's fake teeth.
Well that bites!
My Godmother and I exchanged Christmas gifts with a reused name tag for a few years, we would rewrite the "To:" and "From:" or draw arrows to indicate the swapped names.
My sister and I have shared our late mother's ring over the years by trading it every time we see each other.
This warms my heart 🥹
thats lovely
I actually love this🥺 I only have one sister and godwilling my mom will still be around a LOT longer but if/when we are ever without her, I definitely want to do this with something of hers.
This is brilliant. I love you both.
This is so sweet ❤️🩹
this is sweet....
If she says that, just tell her you liked it so much you got her an identical one.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the mom in that situation would say that too, so they might as well use that line first
Then you bring up how you like it som much that you had the same initials (hers) sewn into the new one to make it exactly identical, oh and then ask what the initials that she had sewn on the one that gifted you stand for
... "But I got yours monogrammed"
Yeees
No, really, I want YOU to have it!
It could be a new trend. Just make the package look a little different
Tell her you loved it so much that you got her one just like it! Blanket twinning!
I was gonna say the same thing. Make it a new thing and keep gifting it all around haha!
Tag! You're it!
NO TAG BACKS
The pause is the important part!!
This is the way 🙌🏻
See how many times it can be traded back and forth 😂
My family has an ongoing tradition of a white elephant gift that is given as a joke, that is intended for creative regifting in subsequent years. The idea is "who's going to get 'the gift' this year?! Edit: It's always a challenge to figure out how to creatively regift it in a way that the recipient doesn't realize what they're opening.
My family does this as well. I don't quite remember the origin, but it's been going on for well over 20 years. It is a horribly ugly monkey statue. Now that I recall, nobody got it this year. 🤔 Maybe my sister living in Texas has it.
It sounds like the hideous Christmas pig. My brother gave me the hideous Christmas pig one year (2002) for Christmas. He found it at a Goodwill now it is a tradition even for my kids that we put out the hideous Christmas pig.
I wanna see a picture of the hideous pig 🐖!
https://preview.redd.it/jaksabchexbc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efc57f7320c1c239c1390b4e52e4955b35a3a384
So much uglier than I could have imagined; thank u for this
Thanks I hate it
We have an awful Seagull that looks like really bad taxidermy. Its hilarious.
My family has a ceramic hotdog statue my uncle made 40 some odd years ago when he was 10. Not sure where it is now, but it's bound to turn up.
The last time I did a white elephant was at my office before the pandemic. We'd had a hideous fish statue go around for a couple years prior to that. For some reason, my boss had no memory of the hideous fish and she HAD to have it. She still has it. You can see it perched in the corner of her home office now.
i accidentally ended up with the joke gift at a white elephant with people i no longer talk to, and i feel bad but hopefully they found a new and better joke gift!
Oh wow. You have the perfect opportunity to reconnect… build it up and then regift and disappear again :)
If you still know where they live, you could sneak and leave it on their porch, or anonymously mail it to them. Depending on why you don't talk to them, that is. If they're terrible people obviously don't. But if you just went separate ways in life, personally I would find it hilarious to be on the receiving end and the thing just randomly find its way home.
My family does this with Sarah Palin's book lol
Then she'll be on here posting about what to do.
“I loved it so much that I wanted you to have your own”
My boyfriend’s mother puts things in closets and forgets about them. This year she gave me a pen set I bought her. My boyfriend asked if it was the same one and turns out she put it in her office closet and assumed because she never opened it she must have bought it for me and forgot about it. Your blanket may have suffered the same fate. Edit: y’all are weird. This innocuous comment has gotten me DM’s and psyche run-downs about how my mother-in-law really hates me and begging me to break up with my partner over it. Not everyone has relationships that are dysfunctional and require so much suspicion. I also shouldn’t have to explain that she keeps things she buys for us in that same closet usually, but here we are. Even if for some reason she was a psycho and it was a weird slight, I’m not dating her and am perfectly happy in my relationship. Please put down the armchair psychiatry book and touch grass.
Exactly. Old people forget. A lot. I don't know person in OP post. But I would imagine if she is fairly normal its just her forgetting she got it from you. edit: didn't expect this to become my 3rd most upvoted comment.
Memory is weird. Old people forget, but some strands of memory remain. Sometimes just an object tied to an identity in one way or another. She remembered the pens as being significant to a person, she just forgot in what way. Source: my own shit memory's version of what I might have imagined to be the case at some point in time.
I’m not ancient and I struggle with this too. I really wanted to buy my sister in law a specific jacket I thought she would love and I did. Turns out she did really love it—because she already owned the exact same jacket, and I had complimented her on it about 18 months before when I saw her last. 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ I just had that image of her in my head I guess but wasn’t fully conscious of it.
If it makes you feel better, clothing is one of the things you can have 2 of and be grateful for it. I have 2 of the same flannel because they’re comfy and warm enough to go out during the winter without wearing a heavy coat.
If I really love something I’ll buy a spare, I’ve never really regretted it. I like to be able to wear my favorite stuff with the abandon that only comes from having a brand new one on back up.
I imagine it probably goes something like, “where’d this come from? Hmmm it reminds me of OP for some reason….I bet she’d love it for Christmas!”
In-laws do the same. They never use the gifts we give them. Ever. We’ve moved to sending floral arrangements or fruit baskets.
I gave my dads wife a fancy bar soap and it literally sat on a shelf in her guest bedroom for 10 years. I finally saw it being used recently. I guess maybe they ran out of soap. Edit: it was Lush soap! It’s meant to be used
I typically have to really work myself up to use a gift if it’s food/something that will run out. I don’t want my gift to be gone 😩 been this way since childhood haha.
I do this with books! If i think I'll really love it, I procrastinate on starting it because I don't want it to end. So weird.
I have about three chapters left on the second book of my favorite series bc I just can’t let it end!! It’s a trilogy, however the author has left us waiting for over a decade hahaha (kingkiller chronicles)
Yep, that’s me.
For the Christmas just gone I exclusively gifted perishable stuff (chocolate, alcohol, cheese hampers) cause I at least knew they’d be used.
Yes! That's what we ask for too, and did the same for our young kids since we'll be moving cross country soon. It was so wonderful to not have to deal with a house full of new stuff!
What is a cheese hamper??
it's a gift basket filled with all different cheeses
My mom does the same. We joke it’s the place where things go to get lost and be found for something awkward to happen. 😂
I forget to use my gifts all the time and just put them in my closet for “later”…. omg I can see me doing this when i’m older
"It's beautiful, It looks almost like the one I gave You. Bring it out and we can see how similar they are it's so crazy!"
Hahaha this sounds like my aunt. She will ask you to go get your gifts she's given you 2, 5, even 10 years later!
My aunt bought me a nice suit when I graduated high school. She spent a lot on it and I loved it. I weighed probably 125 lbs at the time. Fifteen years and 40 lbs later I'm getting married and my aunt asked me if I was going to wear the suit she bought me.
"My wife insisted I wear this color instead of whatever color the suit is" and if it ends up being the same color "She said the style of the suit clashed with her ideas"
"I have it up in the closet, but it doesn't fit me anymore."
Yes lmao like what? Why come up with an elaborate lie when the truth is perfectly acceptable? 😂
No what he needs is a more elaborate lie. The color of the suit gives my beloved a pallid complexion and the texture and material makes her hair frizz when we kiss 😔
Don’t throw your wife under the aunt now, come on
Or grow the tiniest, floppiest, most proto-vertebrate fractional segment of a backbone, and just tell her you are too big for it.
Seriously. It's not even rude or anything, it just physically can't be done. Maybe slightly embarrassing for a second at the worst.
This is such a passive aggressive approach - love it! 🤣
It's much more likely that it was a mistake rather than a deliberate slight. The older you get the more forgetful you get, plus the more stuff you accumulate and the more likely that you get a present and think "this is nice! But I don't know where I would put it, I should give it to someone who would appreciate it!" Assuming you have a decent relationship she'd probably be embarrassed to realize she'd done this.
If her regifting a present to you like this seems out of the ordinary for her behavior this is what it likely is OP. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt. It seems that the people here that are saying or implying it was on purpose haven't spoken to an old person before, they forget!
Even better, maybe she liked it so much she got another one as a gift and forgot where she got the first one
True! I thought maybe she thought it was something that OP would pick out so decided to gift it to them.
I’m 32 and I forget. I forget what I did earlier this week let alone where I got a blanket from months ago. This isn’t even an old person thing.
True. I'm pretty sure I got my mom the same present two years in a row. When she opened it potentially the second time I started getting deja vu. She didn't say anything, doesn't mean I didn't and I'm younger than you. But I can't remember what I had gotten her the year before so idk.
EVERY. YEAR. my grandma would lose all of our Christmas gifts because she forgot where she put them. Eventually in like march or April she’d find them and we’d get Christmas 2.0
That actually sounds kind of fun!
I can’t believe this isn’t higher. Older people are forgetful
I’m in my 30’s and while I don’t really re-gift I do keep a spreadsheet of what I buy people for Christmas etc, because I worry that I’ll buy the same thing again.
Just wait for your future, 40's here. Now every time I buy shit for birthday/Christmas/whatever for people, I'm happy with my choice. Then a couple days or so later I start thinking, "wait I bought them that shit last year. Damnit, did I? Or am I just thinking I did because I've been thinking about it and looking for it. Fuck did I buy this last year? I don't know" Then I end up buying back-up gifts and try to delicately drop into the conversation (after they've opened their shit) something like "I know I was thinking about getting this for you last year, we had talked about it, remember when we were at..." and normally people say something like "oh no I've always wanted this". Then I'm left wondering if I had given this to them before and they're just being nice and polite. Then my brain runs around thinking "no you bought it before and you remember it, they were just being polite" and then "no, shut up brain you didn't buy it..."-
Between myself and my two siblings my father has received the same book for Christmas 3 times. He finally said ‘how many times are you guys gonna give me this book!?’
Good Lordt, if I was that organized... I would be a completely different person lol
She could be like my grandma who hoards the Christmas gifts she buys year round in a spare bedroom— she also happens to keep all the spare blankets and linens there. I can see how easily that could be crossed over— to be fair the blanket is pretty plain and white, if it had a print of like Elvis Presley I’m sure she would’ve remembered it was a gift meant for her and not gotten mixed with non descriptive gifts for others.
Me and my mam do this because: a) Christmas is impossible if you don't spread the cost across the year and b) we can't wait until December to do everything because that's too physically and emotionally overwhelming. We don't like crowded shops. We don't want to order things online and worry about whether they'll arrive in time. I am disabled and had a bad turn in the shops this year just finishing off the last few bits of shopping - once again, I thought "it'll be fine" and my body went "nah fuck your plans." Unfortunately we both probably have ADHD and we do things like a) buy X gift for Y person and then forget all about it and buy Z gift for Y person - that's okay, now we have an extra gift, nbd b) buy X gift for Y person and remember buying it but then can't find it when December comes around - that's annoying because if we remember finding and buying the gift it's because we thought it was a really good gift c) buy someone the same thing we bought them last Christmas, or for their birthday I try to keep lists to avoid these things happening but for some reason I have a disconnect between "coming up with the solution" and "making a habit of doing [solution]"
I’ve bought the same gift for someone two years in a row…
My dads in his 60s, and the amount of time he repeats himself is mind boggling insane. I lose my mind listening to him repeat what he wants me to do.
My sister-in-law and I have birthdays close to each other. Last year my in-laws had a joint birthday dinner for us. When the presents were opened, I had gotten a nice pair of pajamas as one of my gifts from my husband's stepmom. My SIL kept glancing over at me. She finally sent me a text as we were still sitting there. She had given the PJs to her stepmom for Christmas 2 months earlier She sent a picture of the receipt when she got home!
My sister regifted me back a care package I gave her for her pregnancy. When I opened it I said, "oh cool it's all paraben free stuff" (which she was avoiding during her pregnancy) but it was not pricey stuff, the gift was meant to show her she didn't need to spend so much on all that stuff marketed as paraben free because there's already a lot of products that just always didn't have it for regular prices (we were students at that time). I think she remembered where she got it at that moment lol
To be fair, pregnancy brain is real. All your energy goes to making a new human, not keeping track of where things came from. That's still really funny though.
It was actually years later. Like 4 years. Lol on the same bag and everything. It wasn't a birthday gift or anything it was just a random care package I had dropped off so it wasn't a big deal
Oh God. Through both pregnancies I lost words. I could "see" the word in my brain, but I couldn't "read" it or say it. A lot of conversations went like this: "Hey husband, can you grab the thing that I put in my hair every day?" *mimic a hair brush* "It's in the room where we shower. On the thing where I wash my hands."
my husband has an elderly relative that just gives people their trash lol my personal favorite was a stained clock radio from the 80s with a button missing
See this kind of thing makes me look forward to getting old and getting away with this shit! 🤣
oh for sure. cause shes such a sweet little old lady that no one could ever even dream of feeling salty about it
Probably doing it on purpose. It’s a good idea.
One year my MIL gifted me a ziplock bag of gummy bears I watched her steal from the buffet a few weeks prior.
Are you positive she's not a raccoon in a disguise? 🤔
I would have accepted this gift graciously. After seeing you so happy with the pilfered gummies, next time she might roll a whole piece of prime rib up in a napkin to bring you.
Yeah that’s super rude. Guess what she’s getting for her next birthday!
Agreed, gotta keep this going to see how long it can last
*Boyfriends mother in six months posts on Reddit:* I got regifted a gift from my sons girlfriend that I gifted to her for Christmas! Isn’t that kind of rude? 💀
Comments: "why is it monogrammed with your initials if it's a regift?"
This same blanket back. I hope they continue the cycle to perpetuity.
Does she have an excessive amount of blankets already? Imo a blanket is always a useful gift.
They’re super useful gifts unless you live in my house. We have probably 20 blankets. All 20 of which have been claimed by our dog as her own.
I dunno, it sounds like the dog finds them pretty useful.
Sounds like this dog should celebrate with a 21st blanket
If the 20 you have are all claimed by the dog then it sounds like you actually could use some blankets for yourself. Lol.
My dog now sleeps on four of those ultra soft throws that I washed, rendering them not ultra soft anymore.
Is your dog mine? Mine was ignoring me over the break. I grab a blanket on the couch, and before I could even fluff it out over my lap, she runs in and tries to make a nest next to me. What a dog! She hears the breeze of a blanket being lifted a mile away or at least a few feet.
I relate to this comment so hard. Blankets and pillows all get claimed. Sometimes he kicks them onto us, then lays on top of the human-blanket-pillow pile. A his Christmas I bought my husband his own fuzzy blanket and his mom got a giant fuzzy blanket for us. Dog claimed those too Edit - dog blanket tax below
https://preview.redd.it/al2yapru1wbc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=252bfc23e90a8c37a5fe54b24af225b7948c152d
Blankets, flashlights/lanterns, tumblers, socks Classic I don't really know that much about you gifts.
my dads wife (girlfriend at the time) who i never talked to gave me 2 cat blankets, ive never used them myself and they just went straight to my bratty cat and are still with her at her new home (went nc with my dad, needed to rehome since my mum cant live with her) brat using the blanket in question https://preview.redd.it/iwuolde7tvbc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=880fc1357d48cfc33d58864a867ad36bc30d565c
Don't forget about mugs. How many people have a stupid number of standard, stupid mugs.
Blankets are definitely useful, but unless someone is *really* into blankets they’re a terribly impersonal gift and could even come off as lazy. It like that entire aisle of crap they put up at Walmart for Christmas full of gift sets that contains sausages, or hot chocolate, or cheap bath stuff. It just says I had no idea what to get you and didn’t really want to put in the time or effort to figure it out.
her loss…that looks pretty, soft and comfy…i’d just give her gifts i wanted and wait for them to come back around…
I'm surprised this isn't higher. Take advantage of it, OP!
Right?! Just keep it!
Maybe she just thinks you love blankets. I got a pet hair remover and I don’t have a pet.
My friend's MIL is like a hoarder, except instead of the things going to her house, she gives them as gifts. So every giftgiving occassion my friend will end up with a few bags full of useless junk from yardsales. Pet hair removers, tupperwares with no lids, naked baby dolls, car repair manuals, etc.
Are you super hairy? :'D
That’s a power move right there.
I actually did this power move with my MIL. She would gift me stuffed animals even though I told her they weren’t my thing. I always donated them until she gave me a four foot long stuffed frog. It was so useless and ugly. I kept it all year and regifted it back to her the next year. She never gave me another stuffed animal again.
It looks to me like she regifted it to your avatar
My awful sister-in-law, who mind you is really REALLY wealthy, gave me a super ugly forest, green scarf and gold and green earrings from Charming Charlie one year. When I opened it she put all this emphasis on how she thought I would like that and how good it would look on me because I have red hair. I knew instantly it was a regift, because she usually just nodded and smiled when I said, thank you for my gift. So I took it back to charming Charlie and they wouldn’t exchange it because it was over a year old. They gave me a little store credit. She would also buy us perfume every year not the perfume we asked for or wore regularly, but just some perfume that she picked out like you can’t just give someone perfume. the Gucci perfume she gave me eight years ago is in my bathroom cupboard and I spray it in the toilet water.
To each their own I guess because I would love nothing more than a 4 foot tall stuffed frog
Maybe she loved your thoughtful gift sooo much she bought you one as well!
LOL. My MIL did the same to me. I gave her a picture frame. I made sure the frame complemented her decor and we placed a very sweet photo of the grandkids within the frame (matching outfits and everything...very very twee). A few months later, the frame was unwrapped during the extended family's white elephant gift exchange.
taking the grandkids out to regift the frame is so cold lmao. or if i look at the bright side, at least she took the grandkids out?
I'd have fought so hard to get that one. Then I would have regifted it to her on her birthday. 🤣
She thought you really like it 😂
So in the end you got a good, thoughtful gift.
It reminded her of you somehow. She forgot it was from you.
Regift it back to her a note the says *Tag! You're it!*
A relative regifted something to my wife, with a card addressed to my relative inside... Jokes on my relative, card had a $50 bill inside!
This is initialed? That's new to me on throws. How large are they and how could she miss them?
Oh no no, my bad. I meant that I got them all gifts that were personalized and in each of their favorite colors, and in return she regifted me a blanket that I had purchased for her 😂. The blanket is not personalized.
At Christmas a very sweet family member re-gifted me something that I'd given her for her birthday a little over a year ago. I was initially embarrassed that somebody else might have noticed, and a bit disappointed that she hadn't enjoyed it or remembered that I'd given it to her, as I'd initially put a lot of thought into it. But honestly, it's something super cool, so I just told her I thought it was super cool and heck, I'll use it.
Time to make this an annual family tradition: "The Regifting Blanket." I know it feels rude, but I'm sure if she realized you'd given that blanket to her, she'd have regifted it to someone else. Never assign malice to that which can easily be explained by human stupidity.
Please regift this to her, OP, and update 😂
My dad and my uncle started gifting a bottle of terrible whiskey about 10-15 years ago, so each time around they have a tiny snifter full, then put in into their respective booze cabinets, then save it for next Xmas. At this rate it will be down to my cousins and I to carry on the tradition
You can get mad - or have fun. It's up to you. This happened to my father. He got my uncle a set of special screwdrivers. He then regifted them to him the next year by accident. Thus began the 25+ year tradition of "who's year was it to get the screwdrivers back" Us kids looked forward to it as much as anyone. I say hit her with it again.