I also think the phrase "it's the thought that counts" should go by the way-side. It seems, to me, to say "It doesn't matter if you think the present is a piece of crap - it's the thought that counts!" Bollocks. If you know someone put no thought into the gift and they gave you something that looks like it was sitting in their garage for 10 years and they thought "eh, I'll just put a bow on this and call it a day," I think it's fair to say that *no* thought was put into it. I realize this paragraph is outside the scope of the thread, but I wanted to get my two cents in.
I am glad that you made this point, as I was going to go back and edit my post to add something like this. Obviously, there are times when a gift
is purposely thoughtless, or the thought is an intentional slight. I have read numerous stories on this site about evil MIL's that have given a very rude and cold gift intentionally.
My problem with the previous posts is that I don't think that going off a registry equates thoughtfulness and vice versa. My SIL was invited to a baby shower of an acquaintance about six months after she had her baby. She did look at the registry and discovered that the registry included something on there that she actually had received and had not used. So, she wrapped it up and gave it to the mom-to-be. I absolutely have no problem with re-gifting, as it was done in this case, but it definitely wasn't thoughtful. It just happened to be convenient.
On the other hand, I attended one of my best-friend's baby shower several months ago. She lives out of state so I flew in for the shower. I only knew two of the women there and there were many young college students from my friend's church who had been invited. I happened to overhear two of them talking about what they got for my friend. One of them indicated that she was embarrassed because she couldn't afford very much and was only able to get her a pack of onesies. She said that she didn't get them off the registry but she found some that she thought were very cute and hoped the MTB liked them. Even though this gift was "just a pack of onesies" and wasn't off the registry, it was more thoughtful, in my book, than picking something that doesn't require any thought, because someone else has already indicated that they want it.