Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas regifting

Following on from the post below...

We used to have brown paper bags, but we needed to save the trees - mind you, the trees could be grown again and it was a renewable resource. But they were murder on the arms of the checkout chicks who had to load them up with groceries, remember, they had that serrated/pinked edge on top? (They could bring them back now, we'd have to load our own groceries into the bags so it shouldn't be a problem!) Though the paper bags had their drawbacks, they broke when they got wet from sweating cold groceries. But we managed.

Just quietly, when Santa delivered the pressies at our house they were always in Franklins' paper grocery bags. Santa didn't have time to wrap gifts for our place, he just put them into the paper grocery bags and wrote our names on them. Now Santa doesn't wrap them at all. She just leaves them in the bags they were put in at the shop. I got lots of bags on Friday! Woohoo! The sister in law has stockings and pillow slips, which we return after we have our gifts so that they can be recycled. I'm adopting that method next Christmas.

Santa also doesn't remove the tags on gifts, the price ones, and includes the docket, just in case. Mum confessed to me tonight that she took her nightie set back and got a credit for it. The nightie set had polyester in it and was a knit, so it would be too warm for her. I wasn't concerned. She found a better nightie at another shop and bought it.

So, don't be offended if you get gifts from me with pricetags and dockets, I choose carefully and try to please, but sometimes I miss the mark, and I'd never be offended if you re-gifted my gift, particularly when the regiftee really loved the item and you felt a bit "meh" about it, or if you took it back to exchange it. A gift should be something you really want but wouldn't necessarily purchase for yourself. A little treat, or an extravagance. Something special, or silly.

Oh, and sometimes I just forget to remove the price tag.

1 comment:

Mehaul said...

It's all too confusing. In Byron there's a green garage fruit shop and the same people own a local Spar. At the Spar they ask you if you'd like a plastic bag (even if you have several hundred items) and then charge you 10c a bag. At the green garage they ask you if you'd like a bag and give you a BIG BROWN paper bag for free.

What's happening?