As we sat there at our annual girls’ Christmas dinner, my friend eyeing off the silver star necklace around my other friend’s neck, I knew I’d made a grave, grave mistake.
This, friends, is a Christmas regifting horror story, and the reason I’ll never EVER do it again.
It all started back in June when my lovely, generous friend, let’s call her ‘Friend A’ gave me a not so lovely – ugly, even – necklace for my 29th birthday. A 50 cent-sized diamante encrusted star on a chunky silver chain, I knew the moment I unwrapped it that it would never touch my neck.
“Ohhhhhh, gee this is so… pretty,” I choked out at the time, extremely conscious my poor friend legitimately thought she’d done a great job selecting that gift for me.
Then, for months, it sat in its original packaging collecting dust at the bottom of my ‘crap’ drawer with old concert tickets and a half eaten chocolate bar. She never brought it up again, and neither did I.
It wasn’t until just last week that I even remembered it existed when another friend of mine, ‘Friend B’ dropped a hint she’d gotten me something for Christmas. Short on time and funds, I made the, in hindsight, truly terrible decision to regift that fateful necklace to her.
After sticky taping up the packaging and wrapping it in fresh Christmas paper, I presented the second hand gift to her over coffee. She LOVED it and put it on right then and there. Job done, I thought.