I have always loved wrapping Christmas presents. When I was a little girl I would always beg my mother to let me wrap all the presents, (or at least as many as I could) However, now that I am older, I find the task more and more overwhelming each year. I still enjoy it. In fact my favorite things to do at Christmas time is picking out the perfect wrapping paper with ribbon to match. But trying to find time—when the kids aren’t around, when the house is clean enough to wrap, when I’m coherent enough to know that I won’t cut myself with the scissors—becomes harder and harder each year. Seven years ago, I would have all my gifts wrapped within a week of buying them. This year, I have five gifts wrapped so far. Yup! Five whole gifts. I mean I guess that’s better than four and a heck of a lot better then zero. Still, it’s taken me two weeks to get those five presents wrapped and it’s a little scary to think I only have two weeks left to get the rest of them wrapped and looking beautiful.
There is another phenomenon that happens each year with wrapping. I always have such high ambitions to decorate each present perfectly. I will take the wrapped gift and pull out yards of expensive ribbon, carefully winding it around the presents, meticulously tying big beautiful bows and writing the name as elegantly as I can. That last for the first five gifts. (I think I’ve reached my limit with doing that) Then I notice I will just wrap the ribbon around the gift once and tie the ribbon in a knot. That will go for maybe the next ten gifts. By the end of wrapping I’m so tired and sick of the presents I just stick one of those store bought bows on, quickly jot down the name and toss it under the tree. So now you’ll know at what stage I was in during my wrapping by how highly decorated your present is. Another sad thing is all my pretty presents always end up at the bottom under the tree, and the quickly wrapped ones on top.
Every year I tell myself next year will be different—that I won’t care as much, that I’ll just stick a bow on all the presents. But it hasn’t happened yet.
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6 years ago
4 comments:
You've already started wrapping? Good for you!
I've been eyeing my box full of gift bags carefully. I think it'll be a tissue paper and gift Christmas this year! I always have delusions of being able to wrap presents beautifully, but so far, that has remained a distant dream!
Don't worry - my mom usually waits until Christmas eve or the weekend before to get it all done. And she is still sane (as far as raising 4 boys and a girl can leave you sane).
We have a fun little tradition when we were a bit older - we'd wrap the presents we were getting for each other in weird shapes and looks, so that the wrapping was part of the gift. Meaning, we made the wrapping and boxed contraption look like something besides a box with wrapping and a bow on it.
I remember most of those must more vividly than the "beautifully-wrapped" ones, or even the presents that came in them.
For example, my brother made one look like a robot. Another one made a car-looking present. Another one was a candy cane (the present was socks or something I believe).
Anyway, I've continued that a little in my family, but mostly I'm waiting until the kids get a little older.
Another tradition I have that I picked up from my dad is to put the to and from information as a coded message that hints at what the present is. For example, this year I got my wife the Transformer movie (she REALLY wanted it, seriously). For the to part, I wrote, "To the woman who changed my life". Get it, change, transform, transformers. ta da!
To sum it all up, the wrapping and even the gifts are not nearly as memorable as the love with which they are given. So, feel great at all the love you are sharing ;)
I put off wrapping until the last possible moment. Only a few have ribbon. The kids gifts have no ribbon, because I got tired of them asking for help to get it off.
I think I am going to invest in gift bags and tissue paper.
Garrett,
For your wife on the card you should put, "There's more than meets the eye to you."
he he he
That is actully a very fun tradition!
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