Have you ever received gifts you have given someone, back as a gift?

System

Maybe they don't like to say 'no more gifts please for birthdays or Christmas' and they don't intend to buy you any so they just recycle what you've already given them in the hope you get the message.

Obviously the children you bought the gifts for never got the gifts in the first place because I cant imagine them snatching them out of their hands as soon as the wrapping paper came off.

sulkisu

It hasn't happened to me, but if it did unless I had reason to believe that they had deliberately set out to offend me, I would be inclined to say nothing. I would assume that money was tight (I can't imagine parents witholding gifts from children for any other reason) and I wouldn't want to embarass them.

marisco_2

Are you sure the presents have been recycled? Perhaps your bil saw how much his children liked using these items, and thought that his niece may appreciate receiving something so nice too.

jellyhead

How do you get on with them usually? Is there any reason to think this had been done intentionally?

jellyhead

The only way I can imagine this happening in my house is if my child was so overwhelmed with lots of presents that some of them are still in bags under the bed because there was nowhere else to put them, and then a year later perhaps they were having a sort out, and the child had outgrown those particular things in the mean time?

I have a tiny house stuffed with too many people, and my children are hoarders who don't like to get rid of their current toys, we end up every December saying that we wish there wasn't christmas coming up because there's nowhere to put any new presents.

I don't mean this to sound ungrateful, lol, but we regularly sort out toys to donate to charity/toy library, etc. and find toys in unopened packaging that could be regifted to younger relatives if we had any.

amus

Do they give gifts to your kids or do they give money/vouchers? Are the gifts you give them of similar value to the gifts/vouchers they give you?

The only instance I can think where somebody would deliberately regift an item is if year on year the gifts they were giving were worth a lot more than the gifts they were receiving, or if the gift was age inappropriate. Otherwise I would think it was a genuine mistake, perhaps the children already had similar things to the items you bought and they may have got mixed up with who sent them the original gift?

DS got bought 3 of the same things once, I was careful not to regift to he same people , but I did regift!

jetplane

I have received a gift that I bought and I took this as she didn't like it put it in a cupboard and didn't remember when she re gifted it. I was tempted to this once when a sister in law bought me a really inappropriate gift. Now I wonder weather my re gift was deliberate

I don't think you can know unless you are re gifted again, unlikely if everyone reverts to money. I think you are right to keep it on here because your daughter is happy with the gifts and no need to cause further upset.

I suppose it depends what your relationship is usually like and if this doesn't change how you interact then vent on here and don't let it niggle you any longer.

bagginslover

I'd make an off-hand comment along the lines of 'how funny we bought each others kids the same things!' and see what they say/how they react.
How can you be sure its the actual items you bought? Are the boxes marked uniqley in some way?

Kayalana99

I'd love to know what some of the presents were, it seems strange the kids didn't open them?

My mum brought my cousins some play doh or something simlar once and next year she recieved messy paint sets for her kids, she later found out that my aunt had brought them as pay back because my Mum had given her the messy play doh... lol.

paulineb_2

I think its really bizarre to think about giving someone identical items as gifts, one item the same maybe, but everything? No wonder you think theyve just wrapped them up and given them back.

Maybe they got tons of gifts, held some back and gave them back to you rather than spend money on your kids, still bizarre as far as Im concerned.