Last Christmas, a friend gave me a Looney Tunes Porky Pig talking cookie jar. What on earth was she thinking? I don’t have young children. I don’t even have a bunch of cookies lying around! Clearly, I was a victim of regifting.

So was Lorraine Tartaglia. Lorraine was excited when her husband’s wealthy aunt sent her a bridal shower gift. But when she opened the box and discovered a bright orange CorningWare set she was floored. What made it worse—the card inside read, “Please accept this gift as a thank you for your recent deposit at our bank.”

The term regifting (giving away your unwanted gifts to others) became part of our vernacular after a “Seinfeld” episode aired in 1995 in which Elaine gave Jerry’s dentist a label maker. The dentist then regifted the label maker to Jerry.

Although most are too embarrassed to admit it publicly, more than half of people regift according to a survey commissioned by eBay. Contrary to what you might think, regifting has nothing to do with economics. People with incomes over $75,000 are more likely to regift than those with household incomes of $25,000 or less, according to an American Express study.

With Porky Pig staring me down, I decided to commiserate with other regifting victims and ask etiquette experts about the do’s and don’ts of regifting.

Melissa Leonard, a Westchester-based etiquette consultant and graduate of the Protocol School of Washington, D.C. says, “Regifting is perfectly o.k. But do not leave any evidence of regifting: remove all cards, original wrapping paper and don’t put something you bought at Target in a Tiffany’s box because someone might try to return the gift.”

“Do not regift within the same circle of friends and relatives—otherwise you might get found out,” Leonard adds. Three years ago, Andrea Banyas was enjoying her bridal shower when she opened a Williams-Sonoma box and found a stainless steel ice bucket. Andrea and her friends immediately recognized the bucket as a regift from a friend’s shower that had been held several months before.

“If you’re caught regifting, never lie and deny, otherwise it will come back to bite you,” advises Leonard. “You can always say, ‘Yes, I did receive this from someone else, but when I saw it, I immediately thought it was so you and how much you would appreciate something such as this.’” Do apologize, especially if you have hurt the recipient’s feelings, advises Dr. Bruce Weinstein, a.k.a. The Ethics Guy. “Tell the person you thought he or she would enjoy it. Most importantly, express how much you value the relationship because the recipient may feel that the regift signifies the relationship doesn’t mean very much to you!”

Another cardinal rule—if something is perishable—don’t wait too long to regift. Robert Florio, a wine enthusiast, was thrilled when his neighbors brought over a Beaujolais Nouveau as a housewarming gift—until he read the label. The wine, which is supposed to be consumed within three months of its release, was several years old. It was undrinkable!

Experts suggest when you receive a gift that you intend to regift at a later time, do label the gift with the name of the giver and the year you received it. This way you will avoid inadvertently regifting it to the person who presented it to you in the first place.

Do regift something the recipient will enjoy and can use. While this seems obvious, often a present shouts REGIFT as in the case of nine-year-old Charlotte Iati. At her birthday party last year she was disappointed when a friend gave her a refill kit to a Paint ‘N’ Swirl Art Machine. The problem—Charlotte didn’t own the art machine so the refill was useless.

With the arrival of the Internet and eBay, people are finding alternatives to regifting. Jim (Griff) Griffith, Dean of eBay Education says, “Folks view unwanted gifts as potential opportunities to turn them into cash—on eBay you can get as much as the gift is worth, if not more.” eBay reports that the top three gifts most likely to be regifted are knick-knacks (50 percent), pampering products (36 percent) and fruitcake (31 percent). Johnny Carson used to say, “The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world and people keep sending it to each other.”

As luck would have it, that fruitcake has ended up with me. My cousin gave it to me as a hostess gift. Ugggh! However, there is good news—I’ve figured out what to do with my Looney Tunes Jar. I’m going to stuff the fruitcake inside the jar, wrap it with festive paper and regift it to my sister for Christmas. She has four kids and a pantry full of cookies. As Porky Pig would say, “th-th-th-That’s All Folks!”    

Web sites for Donating Unwanted Gifts and Gift Cards 
SwapThing.com
swapagift.com
Cardavenue.com