The Duck Brush

Most people know what re-gifting is.  When you receive a gift from someone and you don't like it, or you don't want it, you thank the gifter very nicely.  And then you wait a while and give the item to someone else, preferably someone unrelated to the person who gave it to you so that they don't find out.

One year my mother received a Christmas gift from someone; to this day nobody in the family remembers who sent it.  It was a beautifully carved wooden clothes brush that resembled a male mallard duck.  Mom thought it was rather tacky and couldn't see herself using it, but as courtesy dictated she wrote a polite thank-you note to the sender and hid the brush on a shelf in her closet.

The following Christmas, my father received the duck in his stocking.  After he made a disparaging comment about it, we all had a good laugh.  This began a funny tradition that lasted several years.  Each Christmas someone in the family would receive this duck brush, say something silly about it, and then put it away until the next year when it was passed along to another victim.

One year the brush disappeared.  A thorough search of the house turned up nothing.  For a while it was thought that Mom had parceled it up and sent it to my brother, but he denied having seen it.  We never saw the brush again.  We could only hope that whoever got it made a funny tradition out of it also.