From The E-Hell Blog: Ooopsie Thank You Note

[elephantschild]

I had some of those those decorated boxes that you don't need to wrap, but I wrap anyway.  2 year old DS unwrapped his said "Ooh I got a reindeer" then set the box down and moved on to the next gift. 

Hahaha!  My 1-year-old did this last Christmas. He unwrapped a box with a picture of a kitten on it, yelled "Kitty!" and walked around with it for the rest of the day. (He liked it much better than the outfit inside, perhaps slightly to my mom's chagrin.  )

My MIL is the master of reusing things. Every year, I bake a ton of cookies and make a ton of candy to give as gifts, and buy tins to put them in for the recipients. And every year, she gets worked up because "I have a ton of tins you can use! I have a basement full of them! You don't need to buy any!"  She really means well, but every one of those tins has a brand-name on it and I don't want to confuse people ... and many of them are rusty from spending years in the basement.

My grandma pulled this off marvelously one year when I was in my early teens. I unwrapped a big, heavy gift from her one year, to find a box with a bowling ball on the outside. Now, grandma used to bowl, but it was never something I'd gotten into. I thanked her politely, though ... only to have her smile and tell me to open it.

Inside, in a box weighed down by bricks, was a tiny box with a beautiful birthstone ring in it. I've never seen her laugh so hard. 

That was the last gift I ever received from her. I treasure it to this day ... and I think of the bright blue bowling ball whenever I wear it. 

[Hushabye]

Two Christmases ago, I unwrapped a box from my SIL and BIL to find a giant box of ... diapers.  Luv's, to be precise.

Before I could ask if they knew something I didn't know (), they told me to open it.  Needless to say, it was not filled with diapers but with a variety of books and cute little faery statues that I now have in the windowsill over the kitchen sink.

[PhoenixSong]

My family and I recycle boxes for gifts all the time. In fact, we often purposely use the craziest, funniest box we can find (never a dull moment in my family)  I've used everything from shoe boxes to cracker boxes to feminine product boxes to vacuum cleaner bag boxes.  Of course, we generally don't do this for special occasions like weddings, and not really to extended family- just for the five of us.  It's become a tradition now, where the box is half the fun of the gift.   Actually, creative tags are also part of our gifting experience, but that's another story...

[aventurine]

Welcome!  and...

   Actually, creative tags are also part of our gifting experience, but that's another story...

...do tell.   

[Jolie_kitten]

See, I would never put a gift in some random box, because I would assume that the person would think that the gift was "whatever the box said".    So these stories always surprise me. 

Many items these days come in brightly labelled boxes with pictures, designed to show what is inside the box (because we often don't open the box before purchasing, whereas once upon a time we might have selected an item and had it boxed instore).   If I see one of those boxes, I assume what is in it is what is in the picture!   If I did have to re-use a random box for a gift, I would use a black marker to cover the name of the original item wherever shown.  Of course, that would make the box quite unsightly, so I probably wouldn't want to do that anyway! 

I agree. I have personally always thought that it is inappropriate to gift an item in a box of another item- for exactly the same reason that you mention.
I also agree that covering writing and images on a box with a black marker would be unsightly, so that's not a solution either.
Last Christmas, I packed pretty much all of my presents in shoe boxes or small appliance boxes. My solution: I covered them all up in colorful sticker paper. Unfortunately, the sticker paper was quite thin so on some boxes you could still see the writing trough it, so I had to make a pattern of little pieces of opaque gift-wrap paper sticked to the box together with pieces of sticker paper. It's been a bit of work, but the final result looked very artsy.

[jayhawk]

I had some of those those decorated boxes that you don't need to wrap, but I wrap anyway.  2 year old DS unwrapped his said "Ooh I got a reindeer" then set the box down and moved on to the next gift. 

Hahaha!  My 1-year-old did this last Christmas. He unwrapped a box with a picture of a kitten on it, yelled "Kitty!" and walked around with it for the rest of the day. (He liked it much better than the outfit inside, perhaps slightly to my mom's chagrin.  )

My MIL is the master of reusing things. Every year, I bake a ton of cookies and make a ton of candy to give as gifts, and buy tins to put them in for the recipients. And every year, she gets worked up because "I have a ton of tins you can use! I have a basement full of them! You don't need to buy any!"  She really means well, but every one of those tins has a brand-name on it and I don't want to confuse people ... and many of them are rusty from spending years in the basement.

My grandma pulled this off marvelously one year when I was in my early teens. I unwrapped a big, heavy gift from her one year, to find a box with a bowling ball on the outside. Now, grandma used to bowl, but it was never something I'd gotten into. I thanked her politely, though ... only to have her smile and tell me to open it.

Inside, in a box weighed down by bricks, was a tiny box with a beautiful birthstone ring in it. I've never seen her laugh so hard. 

That was the last gift I ever received from her. I treasure it to this day ... and I think of the bright blue bowling ball whenever I wear it. 

That is so sweet.   

[Luci45]

http://www.vat19.com/dvds/prank-packs-empty-gift-boxes.cfm

Someone posted something like this some time ago. I have been enjoying this site.