It’s better to give what you receive

WHEN it comes to Christmas shopping I’m a real turkey.

Choosing the right gift has never been my strong suit.

Last year I bought my wife a garden hose, and that was one of the better presents I’ve given her over the years.

I know what you’re thinking: it’s a Christmas miracle this jerk’s still married. But it’s not that I don’t care. It’s just I always leave my Christmas shopping until the eleventh hour when I’m driven into a mad Christmas Eve dash through Kmart with panic steering the trolley.

But this year I’m putting an end to that Christmas tradition. No more “it’s the thought that counts” excuses.

This Christmas the gifts I’ll be giving will be just as good as the gifts I receive.

Because they will be the gifts I receive. This year I’m re-gifting. I got the idea last Christmas when I was re-gifted a present from my father-in-law.

I knew it the second I unwrapped it.

It was the very same book I’d given him only a few months earlier, right down to the small crease on the bottom of the front cover that I’d noticed when I bought it. It didn’t really bother me. But I was intrigued when I later learned the exact same thing had happened to his son. That got me thinking. My present was probably intended for him and his for me. And if not for a postage bungle neither of us would’ve been any the wiser. It was almost the perfect crime. I shouldn’t say crime, because is there really anything wrong with recycling gifts?

In my opinion re-gifting gets a bad rap, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Why bother holding on to stuff you don’t want when you can re-gift it to someone who does?

After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

So this Christmas I’m taking a leaf out of my father-in-law’s book, and perhaps the book itself, and re-gifting.

And just in case you’re expecting a present under the tree from me this year, be warned it may be a few days late.

But be assured it is coming — along with a card wishing you a Merry Christmas and a little piece of advice: Don’t look a re-gift horse in the mouth.