Is it Rude to Return a Christmas Gift?

I wouldn't consider it rude at all. But I feel it would create awkwardness and frustration for the person who seeing their gift been returned. This is how i experienced majority responded automatically and naturally! Nothing personal.

People give gifts to each other in so many positive manners and purposes, and they get happy to see their gift brought pleasure and being useful.  So when their gift been returned, they might feel frustrated about their choices.

There's two tips:

Tip 1: We need to generally learn to be careful about what we buy as a gift, when we buy without knowledge of someone's preference and needs, we need to be ready that our gifts might fall down from the priority into the receiver's life and they might return our gift at the end.

Tip 2: We shouldn't become sad or feel frustrated about our gift been returned. Because the most positive point would be, the receiver felt and seen we do care enough and we remembered them to buy something for them. If it didn't became useful enough. It's no one's fault. (which usually as i seen, most people don't think it that way! Frustrations comes a bit anyway!)

So according to what I experienced, i won't never take a chance to make someone feel frustrated or insecure about what the chosen. If what i receive as a gift don't be useful or nothing that i would like at all. I won't return the gift. The way i see it, it's a gift, i never request what i like for a gift, the best part about a gift is to be surprised so i never make a big deal. I would still collect all the gifts that i can't use them or i will donate them somewhere in need.

Note: Also some people become sad as they see their gift is not being used after they visit or ask about it ! Which i would consider it a wrong expectation. We give gifts but what they do with our gift is not our business anymore. It's theirs from the moment they receive it.

Not really. I would think exchange would be a better way but to return something that doesn't fit or you just don't like it isn't really rude.

It all depends on the gift giver's point of view. My father-in-law considered it a great insult. Me, I don't care. I would rather the recipient have something they would use and enjoy.

A few random thoughts on the matter:

My aunt (my mother's only sister) was the one woman who showed me unconditional love as a child.  When I was a young adult, I always tried to buy her something for Christmas that dovetailed well into her lifestyle and that would meet a need that she had expressed a desire for.

One Christmas I bought her what I considered the perfect gift.  The next day she told me she really couldn't accept it because it was too expensive. So she gave it back to me and asked me to spend the money on something for myself.

Obviously, that constant attempt to put me first (unconditionally) was her motive---and it was simply another example of why I cared so much for her.  But it was the only thing she ever did that actually "hurt" me---but she did so with a "pure" heart.

So there's an example from the giver's side:

I once gave my oldest boy (when he was about 11 years old) a dremel motor tool that I was absolutely sure that he had fallen in love with. His reaction was much more than polite, but he obviously wasn't feeling the "perfect joy" that I was hoping for. 

It turned out that I had totally missed the mark and bought the item I had thought he was referring to.  It turned out that I had bought the other item on the page instead of what he really wanted.  We fixed that a few days later.

So these days (and for a large number of years actually) I go with what either Ann Landers or Dear Abby said (sorry, I couldn't locate the reference) "a giver has no claim on a gift once it is given."

And I think that allows both the giver and the recipient the most freedom in the matter.

The word "rude" carries the added taint of being "impolite in a deliberate way."

So my take is this:  I give you a gift with the hopes of adding to your happiness.  If it does not add to your happiness, then I would much prefer that you trade it (in whatever way you think best) so that whatever you eventually wind up with does in fact help you to be happy.

Enshrine it in a place of honor, return it, exchange it, even re-gift it---it comes with no strings attached.

It depends on if you asked for that gift.

1 - If you did, and then return it ... You are a world-class jackass.
I have had one person do that to me, and they will never get another gift from me.

2 - If you gave them a list of possibilities, and the gift was not on that list ... It is totally acceptable that you return the gift.  It is NOT "the thought that counts".  IF they had thought about it, they would have gotten you something from the list.

3 - Even if you didn't give them a list, or they couldn't afford anything on the list ... If the gift obviously doesn't suit you, there is no harm in returning it.  Again, "the thought" only counts IF they actually put some thought into the gift.