Fox News Poll: Help with your shopping -- most say re-gifting is okay

Last week, I was invited to a tree-trimming party.  I gave the host an ornament from Tiffany’s … that I had received the year before.

He was ecstatic.  Tiffany’s!

Then I came clean.  It was a “re-gift.”  My host didn’t mind at all -- and it turns out that he agrees with most Americans.

More than seven in 10 people say it is okay to re-gift presents:  15 percent say it is “always” okay, and another 58 percent say it is “sometimes” okay.

About a quarter thinks it is “never” okay to re-gift (24 percent), according to the latest Fox News poll.

There’s a bit of a gender gap: 29 percent of men say re-gifting is always a no-no, while just 20 percent of women disapprove.

Another difference of opinion on this timely issue is regional:  31 percent of Midwesterners think re-gifting is never okay.  That’s about 10 percentage points higher than those living in other parts of the country.

Meanwhile, the poll also asks “Is there a war on Christmas?”  Fifty-four percent say no.

Thirty-nine percent say yes, there is a war on Christmas in the United States these days.  That includes 59 percent of white evangelical Christians, 49 percent of Protestants and 30 percent of Catholics.

Voters identifying with the tea party (78 percent) and Republicans (55 percent) are much more likely than Democrats (23 percent) to say Christmas is under attack.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,027 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from December 14-16, 2013.  The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.