Britons spent £2.4bn on unwanted Christmas presents this year

By This Is Money Reporter
Updated: 03:18 EDT, 26 December 2011

Over the festive season, £2.4billion is spent on unwanted Christmas presents, a new survey suggests.

One in five Britons said mothers were the worst culprits for giving inappropriate gifts, followed by mothers-in-law (18 per cent) and aunts (16 per cent).

Unwanted: Every UK adult will have been given up to two presents they did not want this Christmas

A survey of 2,000 people for online classifieds website Gumtree.com found that every UK adult will have been given up to two presents they did not want this Christmas, each worth £48.41 on average.

A third of unwanted gifts end up gathering dust in the loft or the back of a cupboard, 15 per cent are given away to someone else, and 2 per cent are binned.

But half of Britons are too polite to express their true feelings about undesired presents and will thank the giver enthusiastically, according to the survey.

Just 10 per cent of people will admit they do not want the gift and ask for a receipt, and only 4 per cent will be completely honest about what they think of the offering.

Hamish Stone, from Gumtree.com, said: ‘From our research it’s clear that despite many people’s best efforts, homes across the UK are going to be cluttered with lots of unwanted Christmas presents this year.

‘Rather than letting them take up valuable space in cupboards and garages, we’d encourage people to sell the unwanted presents online and convert the bloopers to cash.’