How to Handle Unwanted Gifts

Now that it's the New Year and everyone has made it safely through the holiday season, it's a good time to take a step back and reflect. There were the good times spent with family and loved ones, the successes of the past year, the lessons learnt, the joy you spread, the gifts you gave-but more importantly-the gifts you received.

If you were lucky this year and received everything that you asked for, well, that's good for you. Chances are that no matter how lucky you were, you also received a few things that you have absolutely no use for. They might simply be duplicates of something you already own (say, a fourth pair of slippers), or they might be a perfectly mismatched gift for you (say, a tub of Cracker Jacks for someone with a peanut allergy).

So what do you do when you receive gifts like these? Well, hopefully you accepted them gracefully so people don't think you're an elitist who snubs gifts that aren't worthy of them. If you botched that part, for shame-but hey, you can still make up for it with how you handle the gifts now that they're still sitting under your tree.

The first and foremost option is to re-gift the unwanted gifts. If they're holiday themed then you're in luck-by December 2009 everyone will have forgotten that it was given to you in December 2008. Box it up and give it to someone who would appreciate it-however, do not give it to the person who gave it to you. If anyone's going to remember the gift, it would be them. Birthdays and other holidays are also acceptable occasions for re-gifting. However, if the gift is perishable (like aforementioned tub of Cracker Jacks) consider re-gifting it sooner rather than later.

The second option is gift trading. It might sound crude, but if you have something I want and I have something you want, why don't we swap (and forget waiting until next holiday season)? When you get into the more advanced realms of gift swapping you don't have to limit it to just two people-I recently participated in a three way gift swap. My boss gifted me a bottle of tequila, my sister was gifted a bottle of gin, and my father was gifted a bottle of scotch. Well, my sister likes tequila, my father likes gin, and I like scotch. So we did what any responsible adults would do-we made a triangle swap, and now, everyone is happy.

The third option for handling unwanted gifts is quite simple: Online auctions. You might not like, have a use for it, or be physically capable of using the gift. But someone else will like it, have a use for it, or not be allergic to it. The chances of the buyer being someone you know and being a person who knows you that you're selling a gift (and thus, embarrassing you) is statistically infinitesimal. Don't worry about it. If you go this route, happy selling!

The fourth and final tip I have for handling unwanted gifts this year is also quite simple. There are various organizations and drives that help the less fortunate that would be more than willing to take those unwanted gifts off your hands. You could start your new year with some charitable donations-and a few potential tax deductions to boot.