The concept of re-gifting is frowned upon by many. Re-gifting, for the unenlightened, is the practice of giving a gift you have received to another person, under the pretense that you chose it and bought it yourself. Opponents of re-gifting claim it is impersonal and argue that if you don't care enough to go out and buy someone a gift you have chosen, is it really worth giving them something in the first place?

However, if you look at the other side of the debate, one could argue that re-gifting can indeed be thoughtful and actually a fairly green way of giving. Allow me to explain: Say you were given a nice small kitchen appliance as a gift, but your current one works just fine or it's just not something you would use. After it sits in a drawer for a few months, taking up space, you end up putting it in more permanent storage to clear room in your drawer/on your counter. There's a good chance that unless your current appliance breaks in the near future, the new one will be forgotten about until years later you finally go to clean out the basement and discover this antiquated contraption, whose only purpose now may be for educational purposes so your children know what an electric can opener, for example, looked like back in the day. However, you know your canned food-loving friend would use it every day. If you've never used it before and can find a good home for it, is that really so bad? You've just saved one more thing from ending up in a landfill one day.

Not to mention, in these tough economic times, maybe you'd really like to give somebody a small token of your appreciation or just to let them know you were thinking of them, but your budget is already taken up by gifts for family members. Why not give away the bottle of red wine you received from a co-worker, but never drank because red wine gives you a headache? Especially if you know that the recipient adores trying new red wine.

That being said, the line should be drawn at gifts that you have already used. Passing off something used as a new gift, no matter how good the condition, is just a wee bit tacksville. Especially if it's the aforemention bottle of wine. Nothing says happy holidays like a half-empty bottle of merlot after all.

So go ahead and re-gift to your heart's content, knowing that you may make someone's day and give Mother Earth a break in the process!

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