Got any unwanted holiday gifts lying around the house right now?
The Team Sunshine Performance Corporation, a local theater company, is throwing its fifth-annual “ReGifting Party” Thursday at PhilaMOCA. Regifting parties are kind of a thing, but usually closer to the start of the new year. Team Sunshine Artistic Director Benjamin Camp explained that they wanted to make sure everyone’s “holiday hangover” was over by the time this event came around.
“We were looking for a way to gather people we love and people who are interested in being part of an arts-centered community, but we got exhausted by the holidays. Everybody has a party in December. Everybody asks for money in December,” said Camp. “We wanted to get people together safely after that happened, but still in that spirit.”
Here’s how it works: Admission is free. You have to bring “a wrapped gift you spent $0 on.” Attendees select gifts in the order of the numbers they’re given. If you hate the present you get, all isn’t lost— you can enter the “trading pen” to try your luck once more.
Each year, Team Sunshine shares something the company has worked on as their gift for all the guests. For 2017, they’ll be screening a mini-doc on their time on Cuba.
“The first year, people were regifting, like, cloth bags. Someone regifted a bottle of water,” Camp recalled. “But the gifts are getting good.” More recently, guests have won items like a hand-knit blanket and a sushi-making set.
Camp can’t say that he leaves with cool stuff each year. His wife wraps presents for the event without him seeing. “I keep choosing, twice now, something from my house that we’re trying to get rid of,” he said.
“I think what I get out of it is getting to spend time with the people who are there,” he reflected. “I know that sounds cheeseball.”
