I can’t wrap either. Mr. Jeeves is a wrapping genie! His favorite way to wrap gifts is without tape at all!! He feels he has failed if he has to use tape, and his gifts are always freaking beautiful. Thankfully, all I need to wrap are the gifts to him, he does everything else.
I can pack a suitcase as if it’s a Tardis. I can fit 10 days worth of clothing, shoes, underwear, socks, and toiletries into a 21.5 x 14 x 8 Samsonite Spinner that fits into the overhead compartment of any plane that’s at least Boeing 737 or Airbus 319 sized (it won’t fit on an Embraer, Canadair, Saab or de Havilland overhead).
I am an expert in packing a suitcase and laptop bag that I can carry on or planeside check so that I virtually never have to visit the baggage claim or wonder ‘Where the hell are my bags?’
I can’t wrap a gift for anything. I can take a perfectly square or rectangular box, and when I am done gift wrapping it, the result will be an oddly misshapen thing that is unrecognizable as a box.
I accept this fact if only because badly wrapped gifts do not cost extra, but checked bags do!
Gift bags gift bags gift bags gift bags.
I can wrap presents fine, but gift bags are 1) easier, 2) more environmentally sound because 3) they can be reused, and 4) customizable.
I did time at a mega drugstore that offered free wrapping service to all customers who bought items in cosmetics. The idea was that the person selling the item would wrap it but most of the folks hated it so I used to come in on busy shifts and just wrap. And wrap, and wrap, and wrap, and wrap.
I can now, literally, wrap a gift with one hand while doing something else with the other. I can do crazy, fancy, twirly things with ribbon. I can craft teeny-tiny little fans out of matching wrap and afix them to the gift in about 30 seconds.
Quick-Wraps McGee is what I’m called around these parts.
Well, no. Not really. But I am a good wrapper.
I used to be a shitty wrapper until I worked in a bookstore for awhile.
Oh, retail jobs. You are good for something after all. Well, besides all the fond memories.
I’ll be on the ‘gifted wrapper’ side of the room. All I can attibute it to is my OCD level attention to detail.
All I can offer is a couple of hints that I’m sure you’ve heard before, but they are IMO, the most important part. Fail them and everything following is doomed to failure.
The first pass of paper of paper around the package has to be tight. Go ahead and anchor one end to the box if you need to. Don’t worry if it’s a little skewed, that can be cleaned up later. But pull the paper as tight as you can without tearing it.
Which brings me to the second tip. Thin, cheap paper is the worst enemy of the challenged wrapper. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you’ll just get the cheap stuff so you’re not wasting good money on something that’s going to look like crap. Get some fair quality paper that feels about like notebook paper. It won’t be so thin that it tears when you look at it or so thick that it’s difficult to manage.
Finally, don’t worry if it doesn’t look like it was done by a professional. It’s all going to wind up shredded in a trash bag at the end of the day. Enjoy your holiday and don’t sweat the petty things!
Man, I love wrapping. And I never get to do it cause I never have $$ to buy people stuff. Send all your gifts to me so I can have some fun this holiday!
I have absolutely no artsy-crafty talents…maybe that’s why
I suck so bad at gift-wrapping.
These days, when shopping for a gift, I groan out loud if the
item is in any way odd-shaped.
Gift bags…that’s the way to go!
I’m a decent wrapper. My problem though is I always start with too much paper and have to cut it down on the ends. I’m not good at visualizing how much paper I will need. Then the ends look crappier than they should. Otherwise though I am okay and am still pretty young and have many more years to improve my skills. And I always use at least 6 pieces of tape 
But I am good at picking out really cute paper and gift bags/boxes. If you have storage space, venture out to day after Christmas sales and get all your paper, ribbon, bows, boxes, and Christmas cards - usually that stuff is at least 50% off. I am a snob about using really pretty paper and all that. Target had some really cute boxes last year, prettier than most wrapping paper, for you wrapping challenged who still like to give pretty gifts.
This is what I have to tell myself every year to compensate for my wretched present-wrapping skills. I also tell myself that the presents that look like they were wrapped by a machine don’t have the personal touch that mine, which appear to have been wrapped by a palsied mandrill, do.
Look, it’s not rocket science.
First, you estimate how much paper it’ll take to cover. Wrap the paper around the gift before you cut it if that helps. Then fold sharply. Tear it right on the fold, using the back of a butter knife as if it were a letter opener. Then take your vagina and…what? No vagina, you say? Jeez, dude…I don’t know.
My brother does the greatest bad wrapping ever. One year, he put a gift in a cardboard box, duct-taped it shut, then created an elaborate bow with loops and curls…from duct tape. We all got a big bang out of it.
I’ve discovered that obscene quantities of curly ribbon hides a multitude of wrapping sins.
I used to work at one of those pack-and-ship places, and one of our many services was gift wrapping. I used to be a whiz at it. “Mad skilz” is what the kids call it these days? I think part of the battle is having good heavy paper that stays where you put it and can take a crisp edge when creased.
I even used to do “impossible” wrapping with double-faced tape so the gift was wrapped with no visible tape at all and no loose spots to start tearing from.
Now, my wrapping skills have degenerated to point that I think my dog might be better at wrapping. 
My husband is a duct tape wrapper. He’ll put a pair of earrings in a refrigerator box just to throw me off the scent. But if it’s done with duct tape, it’s got to be good!
Hint: wrap it up, as crappily as you may, in plain, brightly coloured tissue paper, then put it in a gift bag. It looks pretty from the outside, the recipient still gets the fun of ripping it open, and since the tissue paper is one colour (and comes in sheets of limited size), the problem wrapping job is less obvious.
(For the wrapping gurus in the audience: One of the best solutions to a problem wrapping job I’ve ever seen was when my mom got me a new duvet set when I was about 14: a big, soft, lumpy shape. She wrapped it up in a white garbage bag, tied it around the middle with a scarf, and drew a snowman face on the top.)
Put me in the middle of the room - I can wrap, but they all look about the same (a bland-looking gift) when I’m done. I have two crafty sisters who turn every present into a work of art; I don’t compete with them any longer. If you can’t see visible parts of the gift sticking out when I’m done, it’s a gift-wrapping success. I’m using up my paper and switching to gift bags, too (great idea about wrapping them inside the bag, matt.
Now, let’s talk about tape. Me and tape, we don’t get along so good. It seems to want to stick to me and itself and that’s about it. I think it hates me.
Neither my husband nor I are particularly good at wrapping.
Which is why we both tend to buy predominantly “box” shaped presents for everyone. Rectangles are easy.
I love wrapping presents. I like it better than thinking up gifts and shopping for them.
It kind of helps to think of gift wrap as being like a really simple box template, except instead of tabs on the edges, you need to fold the edge of the paper into 45 degree folds that follow the surface of the box the gift is in.
Use a hard, lint- and dust-free surface, a pencil and ruler, and a nice sharp scissors. Take your time. Try to find gift wrap with a grid pattern on the back-- this will help you cut straight edges, which are the key to a good wrap job.
I have no shame when it comes to present wrapping.
If the piece I use is at the end of the roll, and it’s not quite long enough, I’ll tape scraps of paper I’ve saved over the course of the gift-wrapping season to the box to hide the uncovered areas.
If the paper tears once it’s taped on the box, I cover it with stickers.
I re-use bows. Based on family photos, some of these bows were in use when I was in junior high school.
One year, I made a last-minute purchase at Best Buy. While Best Buy also carried wrapping paper at the time, I couldn’t find any tape in the store. Fortunately, my Jeep is well-stocked with duct tape. 
(Since my next stop was home, the gift had to be wrapped before I arrived.)
Oh, I used some extra-glossy paper to wrap some gifts this year. It’s impossible to get a sharp corner with that stuff.
The box makes all the difference in the world. I got lazy this year (due to lack of time resulting from illness) and decided to wrap certain items in the boxes they arrived in, regardless of the box’s condition. One of these boxes caved in during wrapping; the paper is held in place with copious amounts of tape.
Oh man, just run with it. If you can’t wrap the damn things, embrace it. Stake your claim as the crappy gift-wrapper in the family. Get creative. Get those cheapie stick-on bows from the discount bin and slap them on helter-skelter. Duct tape has been mentioned already. Be innovative, also, in your choice of paper. Some people like to recycle by wrapping their gifts in the funny papers. But what about old movie posters? Beer ads? I once wrapped a gift in a science article about elephant artificial insemination. I need never put my name on the gifts I give; even from across the room, they are instantly recognizable among a pile of otherwise-identical, clinically tidy packages and gift bags.
Make it a point of pride. Soon-- it’ll freak you out how soon-- others will too. They’ll exclaim in delight at how horribly your gifts are wrapped. They’ll pass it around before unwrapping it. The gift itself will be an anticlimax. If by some chance you happen to give out a neatly wrapped gift, people will express disappointment.