Christmas gifts, that is. I just finished wrapping 8 of them. That would probably be no big deal except for 2 things:
They’re not even my gifts that I got for my friends or family. They’re not even my boss’s gifts that he’s giving people. They’re my boss’s mother’s gifts to give to her friends.
I suck at gift wrapping!
I can never get the paper cut right; it’s always skewing off at some odd angle, too short, or too long (which I then try to trim down and inevitably cut it too short - ugh). And ribbons? Forget anything fancy schmancy from me. I can basically tie a plain knot and stick a store bought bow on top. I’ve even tried to go the fancy bag stuffed with tissue paper route, to no avail. How come everyone else seems to be able to get the tissue paper to look so pretty and mine just looks like a wadded up mess?
The only thing good about having wrapped these gifts at my office is that my cat wasn’t here to help. She’s not the great helper that she thinks she is. She’s precious, but she can’t wrap presents any better than her mom.
So are you a good gift wrapper? Do you wrap your own gifts whether you are or not? Or do you have the stores where you buy them do it for you? If you are good at gift wrapping, may I come to your house and have you wrap mine? If I beg? Pretty please with sugar on top?
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
I stink at wrapping presents. The tape is always all over the place. The paper is cut jagged, often I have to cut extra pieces of wrapping paper out and tape them on just to cover empty edeges. By the time I am finished it usually looks like some kind of failed school experiement. Well, it would if I started using Elmers Glue.
Anyway, the point is I am a bad at wrapping presents.
But, I would never in a trillion years let the store do it. My wrapping adds some kind of personal touch, I did it, and here is my proof. It doesn’t hurt the gift any for it to be wrapped by me, so I do it.
As the oldest of thirteen children, I was often called upon by Mom (Santa) to help wrap Christmas presents. She, being the stickler she is, was quite finicky about the end product. As a result, not only am I quick the presents are extremely neat when I’m done.
An aside…
GBS’ daughter was married earlier this year. I wrapped most of her presents for the shower. GBS wrapped a couple. GBS Jr. immediately indentified her mother’s handiwork. But she did ask about the one’s I had wrapped.
“Mom, did you wrap these,” she asked impressed.
“Yes,” GBS lied through her teeth.
I’m pretty good at wrapping. One year, I took various size pieces of cardboard and made containers into odd shapes and taped the present inside so that couldn’t be easily shaken (not stirred).
What I like to do is take all the bits and pieces of christmas wrapping left over, tape them together (they have to be different wrapping designs), and use that to wrap a present, making it look like some patched-together creation of Dr. Frankenstein.
I always get a store bought wrapping for a wedding present. Xmas and otherwise I’ll do myself, and I can do a great job. I just hate to. So it’s only the nieces and nephew who get anything from me. It’s munchie baskets for any grownups I can’t mange to disqualify from the list.
I will say the advent of the gift bag has made it all easier. Perish the thought of me squandering my precious bucks on one - I just recycle the ones I get (usually with booze in’em).
As a holiday season aside, I’ll add that a friend of mine from Hong Kong says it’s SOP there to take a little white-out to the signatures on Xmas cards, sign your own name and send them on.
At our house, the presentation is an integral part of the gift, so the special gifts get the full treatment:
No raw edges of paper show.
No tape is visible (double stick tape)
Patterns are matched if possible so seams are not obvious.
This applies only to gifts for grown-ups. It used to be standard, but that was before grandkids. Most of the time, wrapping the kids stuff is enough to make me want to just put everything in brown paper bags and staple them shut. But I do try to make a thoughtful and loving presentation of the “nice” adult gifts. The message is “I know that the wrapping will be quickly destroyed, but you are worth the extra effort to make this as beautiful as I can make it.”
On the other hand, I’m so far behind this year that the brown paper bag may be the answer.
I am unbelievably crap at it. Even with straightforward shapes like boxes or rolled up poster tubes, I still manage to make a dog’s breakfast out of anything.
But of course, those that know me realise that and are forgiving. Anyway, they’re just gonna be ripped open, so why bother with anything fancy?
Brown paper packages tied up with string. If it’s good enough for Julie Andrews, it’s good enough for my family.
Hey MaryAnn, I’d love to wrap your presents I did it for my roommie all the time. I love wrapping gifts! (and I really need a haircut!)
Seriously, I really do like to wrap presents. I love to coordinate paper and ribbon, and I usually buy a package or two of unbreakable tree ornanments to tie on the boxes. Sometimes I will use a little piece of holly or a fake poinsetta flower instead of a bow. I also make sure that no two are alike under the tree.
Happy Holidays,
Rose
I like wrapping gifts, and usually get exclaimations at how pretty they look. I especially like to put lots of ribbon curled up with a scissor edge, and all kinds of glitter & spangly stuff.
There is an ulterior motive to this, though. I can’t afford to buy expensive presents, so at least try to make 'em look like they’re special.
I pretty much use bags now since we reuse them over and over again. But when I do wrap presents I actually wrap nice presents and make my own bows for each package.
Of course, you shouldn’t use the packages I sent you as an indicator of what my presents looked like. I wanted yours to make it in time for the holidays and I did the best I could at the time. =)
I’m pretty good at it and used to enjoy it a lot more than I do now. One thing I do like is I have a bow-maker, so my ribbon and bow always match (because they’re from the same ribbon.) I don’t usually for X-mas, but a special and signature touch I really like for a birthday or something is that if a person has a favorite movie or actor, I like to use film from a movie trailer as ribbon/bow. (Granted, you have to work in a theater or know someone who does to have access to this.) It’s really distinctive and cool-looking, and a lot of fun when they hold it up to the light and exclaim their delight. And, naturally, the cheapskate in me loves getting one final use out of something that usually gets thrown away without ceremony.
I love wrapping gifts. I fold the edges of the paper over and do the tape-tuck thing so you can’t see the tape (works better than double sided IMO), I match the pattern on the edges, I make my own bows and sometimes do other things to the packages… I remember one year I got plastic champaigne(sp? I’m too sick and tired to check) glasses filled with confetti with saran wrap glued to the top (stretched taut so it looked clear) and glued origami birds to the rim of the glass, and glued the glasses on the packages amid a fluffy pile of curled ribbon and bows… I have too much fun with it. Heh… another time I made a bunch of origami animals and glued them all over the top of the box in sort of a scene (this was for a boyfriend at the time–back in high school. He just crumpled them up with the rest of the paper and didn’t even look at them. OUCH)
Another good substitute for a bow that I’ve used is an origame peacock folded out of tinfoil.
I suck at wrapping. Sometimes it’s so bad I’ve considered telling the giftee that I took it down to the local “special school” and had them wrap it for me.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
Three staples in a Wal-Mart bag (4 if I’m feeling showy) usually does the trick. Otherwise it comes out looking like something assembled by a far sighted squirrel.
The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik
I did it for my roommie all the time. I love wrapping gifts! (and I really need a haircut!)