About a month ago, I talked about Black Friday, the day that every business loves and all retail employees dread. However, now that Christmas is over, there’s another day that not only retail employees dread but the stores that they work for dread as well. This day that lives in retail infamy is of course today because the Day After Christmas, which is also known as Boxing Day in a number of countries and states, has become the chosen time for people to return all of their duplicate gifts, broken items, and all of the other stuff that they simply didn’t need or didn’t want.
In fact, more returns occur on the Day After Christmas than on any other date on the calendar, so it has become a day for many stores to watch their hard-earned (or, in some cases, not-so-hard-earned) money disappear in a puff of smoke. Fortunately, if you’re feeling a little guilty about that fact (which you shouldn’t be because most stores make all their money back from impulse buys before you have even left the store), you don’t know where your gift came from, or you simply don’t want to brave the crazy mobs at the mall to wait in line for the rest of your natural life, here are some ways that you can get rid of your unwanted stuff without going back to the store.
1. Give it to Someone Else.
If you have an unbroken gift that you don’t need or you don’t want, you can always pass it on to someone else like a proverbial fruitcake (and if you like fruitcake, I do apologize for the implication.) In fact, just because you don’t like a gift or already have three of them doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else won’t love it and/or find it extremely useful. There are a number of charities that will happily accept any clothing, large items, toys, and/or other gifts that you may be trying to get rid of, and if you can’t find a charity that wants your gift, you can always give it to a friend or family member that will love it (and, if they don’t love it, they’ll just begin the process all over again.)
2. Sell it.
If you have an unbroken gift or, in some cases, a broken gift that could be repaired, you may be able to convince someone else to buy it. Yard sales, auction sites like eBay, online stores like Amazon or Etsy, and the classifieds in your local newspaper or on Craigslist are all great ways to find a potential buyer and get rid of all of the stuff that you don’t want. Best of all, you can even get rid of some of the stuff that has been sitting around your house since long before Christmas because you’re selling stuff anyway.
The only thing to keep in mind is that selling your stuff will require you to deal with customers, so it is important to make sure that whatever you say in person or on the listing is detailed and accurate and that you a have a plan for how to actually get the item to the person that buys it. This is especially important for broken items that you are attempting to sell online (or even at a yard sale) because you may find the whole process to be a much bigger hassle than it’s worth if you don’t make it clear that the item you are selling is damaged.
It’s also important to remember that if you are selling a gift, you should make sure to sell your gift somewhere that the person who gave it to you is unlikely to see it. This is important because it’s going to be pretty awkward when your aunt or uncle shows up at your yard sale only to find out that you are selling all of the stuff they gave you.
3. Find a Use for It.
If all else fails and/or you just feel too guilty to get rid of one or more of your Christmas gifts, you can always use your gift in a way other than it was originally intended. For example, if your child got a teddy bear that is big enough to be seen from space, you could always use it as a chair in your child’s room. If you got six calendars that you absolutely love, but, like most people, you only really need one of them, you can cut out the images from the calendars that you like and use them as posters. And, if you got enough socks to outfit a small armed force, you could always turn them into your own sock puppet army and entertain all of the little children in your household or even your extended family.
Photo credit: Corey Ann / DecorLove.com / CC BY-ND