Have been asked to stage a regifting party; thereby getting rid of unwanted Christmas presents, receiving wanted ones and earning money in the process.

Regifting is apparently the latest import from the US - along with skinny winged lattes, Ally McBeal, pottery cafes and Iraqi bashing.

Traditionally (if there is such a thing as a tradition which only began a year ago), they are held towards the end of January, when you have got over the general Christmas and new year mayhem, sorted your presents, put the ones you like away, taken the ones you don't to the charity shop and realised you won, get any more for some time to come. With regifting, Once you've sorted out the ones you like, you save yourself a trip to the charity shop by rewrapping all the unwanted presents, inviting your friends round and having Christmas all over again.

The idea being that, while all not all your Christmas presents may have been entirely appropriate for you, there is probably someone out there who would love the floral patterned wall clock (Thomas's elderly aunt responsible for this one) and all you have to do is find that person, wrap it nicely, hand it over and watch their expression unfold into one of untold joy.

They in return will come bearing the duck egg blue Nigella measuring cups that no one bought you, knowing that heating up pre-prepared food from supermarket chains doesn't require measuring cups and ignoring the fact that your kitchen is full of things that have never been used but go nicely with the Shaker style units.

The earning money part of the deal is that, never having heard of regifting parties, I was enlightened by editor of women's magazine who, in fit of new year resolution efficiency, is planning next January's issue and wants piece about regifting party by someone who has held one. I.e: Me.

So lakes and mountains screen-saver, which has lost me a lot of work since Christmas by corrupting computer, causing it to lose files, stop printing and so on, is duly rewrapped and destined for George Clooney lookalike Macdoctor who will have a computer with system software able to handle it.

A 15in non-stick saucepan will go to Cath who, as she runs own organic babyfood-making businesses from her home, will have more use for it than I. And grassy mobile phone cover will go to Ben, her husband, who runs landscape gardening business and will benefit from having phone which looks like piece of Astroturf.

The homespun, hemp, organic, slipper socks which Ben and Cath gave me have also been wrapped, along with various other bits, like the chestnut truffle pate which I know I will never eat and put in a lucky dip box.

So, presents wrapped, people invited, 11 months in which to meet a deadline (even I can make that) and everything seems to be going well. Cath delighted with pan, Ben loves the grassy phone, though worried he may lose it by putting it down somewhere at work and George, gracious when being given dud software. In return, he said, he had not actually had any presents he had not wanted himself so had bought me some hand-made Belgian chocs.

The only downside of the whole project was the lucky dip idea, which saw Cath homing in on the wrapping paper I had used to deliberately put any friends off picking the socks she gave me.

She said: "Fantastic. I really wanted some of these but they cost a lot, as the hemp is handspun by one-armed Madagascans for fair trade," she delighted, before remembering she had splashed out and bought them for me in the first place ...