Regifting and Me: Tweed Jackets and Book Jackets

I read somewhere or other that yesterday was National Regifting Day. Could this be true? I also learned--via Wikipedia--that the term originated on Seinfeld. Is that true?

My first experience with regifting came--not, as one might expect, from my own frugal family--but from my in-laws. While they were horrified at my family's propensity for cash gifts, deeming them "vulgar," I think they saw regifting as as aspect of WASP-thrift. Seems somewhat paradoxical.

Many months ago, we posted a picture of one of my late mother-in-law's creations: a jacket made of ties. The ties had belonged to Henri Coulette, a poet of some repute, and my father-in-law's buddy. My father-in-law took some of the ties after Henri died. Another of Henri's legacies was a tweed jacket, classic professorial attire. The first holiday after his death, my husband received the jacket all wrapped up. Sadly, it didn't fit, because Mr. FS is pretty tall. My mother-in-law-to-be suggested that I take the jacket, since it went with the Annie Hall look. I declined, Annie Hall being somewhat out of date at the time. So the jacket went back to hanging on a hook in the garage.

Several years later, I was 7 months pregnant with Frugal Son. I found a big bulky gift with my name on it. You guessed it: inside was Henri's jacket! My mother-in-law said "I thought this jacket would be great because it will fit you for the next few months." I said--somewhat crabbily--that I still didn't want it. My mother-in-law had no recollection of the earlier efforts to give us the jacket. So back it went to the garage. I do wonder where it is now. Those tweed jackets never wear out.

As a footnote, let me add that one year I received in the mail a copy of Elizabeth David's book on bread cookery, which I had given to my father-in-law several years before. It was now inscribed to me. I knew it was the same one because it was sans jacket, as my father-in-law has the bad habit of throwing out book jackets when he receives a book.

As a second footnote, you may be interested to know that simply by reading my blog, you are a mere one degree (or is it two?) of separation from Jerry Seinfeld, since I went to school with him--elementary through high school. No, we are not in touch.

Any stories on regifting? the good? the bad? the indifferent?