"Really, you shouldn't have."

That's the tagline of Regiftable.com, a web site dedicated the sometimes-controversial habit of passing along gifts you don't really want to other people. It was the subject of an AP story recently.

McGrigg noted that a survey done by MMC last year found that some 40 percent of respondents admitted that they had regifted. The main reasons were to save money, to save time or because they felt the recipient would like the item.

Some people writing the Web site share those attitudes. Others do not.

One woman wrote, for example, that her sister "thinks by putting a big bow on her regifts, no one will know they have been regifted." It seems the tactic didn't work last year because the woman last Christmas got back the gift she had given her sister a year earlier.

"I am thinking of wrapping it up again and giving it back to her this Christmas," the woman wrote.

 Whoops. There are right and wrong ways to do these things, of course. I was actually a little surprised by the money saving motivation; I can't remember ever actually regifting, but I would expect I might do it because I just wanted to get rid of something, and knew someone who'd appreciate it.

The site is informational in nature. They have regifting tips, and users can submit their regifting stories (there's a contest for the best stories right now). As I looked through it, though, I though they were missing an opportunity.

With all those unwanted gifts collecting dust, maybe setting up a regifting market would be a viable business. It would be a way for you to get rid of those gifts that you don't really want, and can't imagine giving anybody... or finding that perfect weird item for somebody else.

Maybe, maybe not; I suspect eBay already fills that niche.

If nothing else, perhaps the site will help avoid those unpleasant moments when you realize that you've just given a gift back to the person who gave it to you in the first place.