In Christmas Eve, after everybody exchanges gifts, we start a new act, and we start to wrap out my father’s business gifts immediately (which he already selected and took out the useful stuff for himself). As the highlight of the night, the gifts (in branded bags) wait under the whole event to be wrapped out.

We have a special choreography for this part of the night: my father holds up the gifts, and we try to figure out what it could be, then he takes out the thing and the auction starts (sometimes the guessing continues, even after wrapping it out, which tells all about business gifts). In the ideal case, when only one person wants a particular gift, he/she can get the tie with logo, wine etc. If more relatives want it, they all have to state why the gift would have the best place at him/her, and then we decide together.

But you must be careful with rebound gifts I tell you, let me describe a personal fiasco. I had received a beautiful quotation book from my sweet relative, and I tried to give it forth the next year to my kind friend, but when she opened the book, found a quotation which was addressed truly for me, and she said: ‘It would be a too big honor for me to accept this gift, please keep it because it is intended for you.’ I thought I will sunk in shame, and I decided to develop the how to give forth gifts professionally process, because I did not want this to ever happen again.

So I recommend to follow these steps below if you would like to become rebound gift master:

1. Storage

Nominate a place in your house/flat where you collect the gifts. Don’t be mean with the place, you will need a big place to become the master of this ‘profession’.

2. Identify

If we rate a gift to the rebound status, we have to identify it, put a post it on it, write: who gave it, when and for which occasion. The exact remembrance is really important, and if you really want to be a master you also have to note who saw you receiving it, because it’s not a good idea to give this gift forth to those ones. Best to already think about the person who would be happy to receive this gift and write it on the post it.

3. Wait and see

Don’t be impatient, every gift will find their owner in a year (that is my experience based on 10 years practice). So be prepared to store the gifts for appr. 1 year and do not feel tempted to give your treasures for the wrong persons.

4. Forthgiving

Before you would like to buy a new gift for any occasion, always go first and search in your storage room, in 70% of the cases I solve my gift problem from my storage room with big success. Collect your gifts, because with a good base stock you will have a real treasure house.

And remember my story and check that the gift doesn’t include any personalized note, quotation, remove the price, and wrap it in a beautiful wrapping paper every time. Don’t use gift bags, gift bags do not look personalized, and a lot of people reuse them and the worst thing is a gift bag without the note card, because than anybody will know, that it is already reused. If you don’t have to spend money on the gift this time, at least choose a nice wrapping paper!

Good luck!"

Words by Hedvig Bartha, master of gift giving, www.meglepkek.com