Not sure what to do with a perfectly lovely wedding gift that we don't want...

goawayplease

Hey guys!

We got married this weekend and it was lovely. We sold out everything on our registry and were given lots of generous gifts to help renovate our sad, sad kitchen into a happy and useful place. We definitely feel like we got everything that we wanted and then some...

My problem is that my new grandmother-in-law bought us a giant present that we don't want. She's a decorator and she went to Homegoods and bought us three baskets full of dishes and napkins and even a centerpiece of fake fruit and fake flowers. It was very nice of her and we wrote her a lovely note, but we didn't register for china at all since we live in a tiny apartment and don't even own a table. We're really overwhelmed by the gift and I just don't know what to do with it... It's too much to regift to a friend. The part of me that doesn't want to deal with it wants to drop it all off at the thrift store. We definitely got everything we wanted and I don't have storage space in my apartment for another set of dishes that just aren't to our taste. There's been a lot of family drama about this gift already -- apparently she has already returned the first set of dishes that she bought for us because her granddaughter intervened before we got something worse. We were hoping that they could just live in our in-laws basement, but my step-mother-in-law was hurt that her husband and daughter didn't even want to give them to us.

Has anyone here ever been to a Homegoods store? Do they make returns without a receipt easy? There's one in the next state over, but since there's just too much stuff and it's all fragile, we'd have to borrow a car from someone and probably wrangle a friend's help. I'm trying to figure out if it's worth my time and effort.

I feel terrible about all of this, but I'm just trying to remind myself that I am not at fault for not having a bigger registry with or not wanting her gift...

Hellokatie0517

You can return them if the sticker that says Homegoods is still attached and then they would give you a store credit.  Even with no tags you might get lucky as long as someone recognizes the set or they're still in stock.  If the returns person gives you a hard time, just ask for the manager.  Or if you can guess which particular Homegoods your  GIL shopped at, have the store call that store to verify it.    I used to work at TJ Maxx (a sister store to Homegoods), so I know what they can do for you. 

Although, you might want to hold on to them for future entertaining.  You never know when you might want to change up your place settings for a special dinner.  If not, you could put them on Craigslist or eBay.

goawayplease

Good to know! She's taken all the tags off of things for us already, so I may call the store first. The one that she probably bought them from is a good hour away from our house, but if we really want to return them, we probably need to rent/borrow a car and go to that one.

Craiglist or donating them to Housing Works may be our best option. They're really not our style, but I could see them being someone's style... I wish I knew someone who was just starting out and needed a set of dishes or silverware. I have no space left in our kitchen cabinets and we're going to have even less storage space when we renovate. We have more china than we need already -- the nice stuff is in storage and I don't want to pay to store anything I know that I won't use.

noodle_oo

If you really don't want them or think you will use them, I'd either try to return for credit or if that doesn't work, you could either sell them on craigslist to recoup some value or you could even consider giving them away on freecycle or donating them some other way.  At least that way someone will get good use out of them.

But you may want to consider saving like one or 2 serving peices that might be useful in the future, espeically if your relative is the type to notice if you do'nt have what she gave you.  Or is there another family member you could pass them on to?  Then you could tell them, we "so-and-so" is using them until we have space for them.

futurepivko

you could always donate it to Goodwill and get one of those reciepts for a tax refund