I bought my sister a nice metronome for Christmas several years back. It was really small and I wanted to make it look more exciting (and also make her work for it, lol). So I wrapped it in a small box, covered it in packaging tape, then put that into a medium sized box, covered it in packaging tape, and put that into a large box that I wrapped. Took her awhile to get the whole thing undone. She liked the gift a lot, although she was kinda pissed at all the bullshit it took to get to it.
I wrapped a Xmas gift for my teen brother in the color swimsuit and lingerie pages of dept. store ads / flyers.
I’ve done the multiple layers of wrapping, with copious tape. I’ve taken it a step further and did one layer of about 10 coats of paint.
I’ve done the brick in a box with a gift card. Gravel too.
BIL’s gift was put in a BIG box of Kotex - the year his daughter was born. With a note explaining the real gift was saving him from having to buy them.
Related: Gift for fav BIL when he turned 21;
bought a bottle of Jack Daniels - the flask shaped bottle.
Soaked off the label
Used glass etching kit from craft store to write his name (only 4 letters) in fancy font on the bottle. He still has the bottle, and it’s been about 20 yrs.
One Christmas a number of years ago I got my husband three record albums - 12" vinyl LPs. Those are hard to disguise without putting them in a box. I taped each one to the other two to form a triangular box, and I cut two triangles out of cardboard for the end pieces. (Album covers were shrink-wrapped, so the tape didn’t harm the album art.) I stuffed the “box” with an old towel before taping it shut and wrapping it. I made a great big bow for one of the triangle ends along with “this end up” and “fragile” labels. It sat under the tree for two weeks, and he never figured it out.
When I was a kid, my parents got me a rescue cat for Christmas. Under the tree they’d placed wrapped up cans of cat food, but told me they were something else for someone else. So when we’re opening our presents and someone handed those to me, I said, no, these are forx. They said, “No, open it” and it was cat food. I was pretty young and didn’t get it right away, but then they went into the pantry and got the cat, who had been picked up that day.
Waaaay back when cell phones were a novel idea, I wanted to surprise the wife with her first phone. I turned the phone on then wrapped it in a box. I wrapped another box, attached it to the top of the phone box (so she would open it first); this one contained her new phone number with instructions to dial it.
The idea is that she would call the mysterious number from our landline and hear her second box ringing.
The surprise had been spoiled a few days earlier, though, when she received her first bill for her first phone.
mmm
I got my husband a leather chair and footstool that he’d been panting for. We were doing gifts at his folks’ house that year, so I put his in their spare room, and gave him a box that held a really cheap, ugly $1 digital watch and a note directing him to the real gift.
What cracked me up - he was obviously disappointed when he saw the watch, but he tried to be gracious. I had to point out the note to him…
This hasn’t happened yet, but is scheduled for Sunday:
My mom has an old TV in one of the bedrooms of her house that she doesn’t use because she doesn’t have (and doesn’t want to get) cable in that room. She was apparently telling someone she knows that if she could watch TV in that room, she’d be more likely to use the exercise bike which is also there. Whoever she was telling this to gave her a horrible, home-made looking antenna for the TV. She has asked me to hook up said antenna when we come to see her Sunday for the family Christmas gathering.
Now go back up to where I said it’s an OLD TV. There is no chance at all that this TV’s tuner can pick up modern digital TV signals, antenna or not. And my research suggests that there is exactly one remaining analog TV station where she lives.
So we bought her a new TV (and an antenna to go with it, so I’ll technically be abiding by her wish to have me connect the antenna to the TV in that room). We plan to arrive at her house while she’s still at church (I double-checked with her to assure that our plan is to meet after she gets out), de-install old TV, install new TV and antenna, hopefully have time to run through the initial set-up and channel discovery, and then (here’s where this story applies to this thread) wrap up the remote control for her to open.
My grandparents did something similar the year they gave me a pair of finches…hid the birds in the garage and wrapped up a bag of birdseed to put under the tree. I remember saying, “Uh…this will be good for arts and crafts, maybe?”
When I was a kid I did a prank wrapping by accident. I had gotten a cute little kangaroo figurine for one of my Mom’s friends, but it didn’t have a box. Fortunately, I knew I’d seen a box of just the right size hidden under the sink in Mom’s bathroom. It had pretty flowers on it too. Yes, I gave my Mom’s friend what appeared to be a box of tampons.
Not sure why this got resurrected five years to the day after the (formerly) last post.
Anyway, not long after we were married, maybe the second or third Christmas, my wife unwrapped a small present from me to reveal a small sewing machine figurine that I’d swiped from her curio shelf. She recognized it, and took it out of the box trying to hide her disappointment that I’d just wrapped up her own figurine and given it to her. Underneath was a note telling her to look in the back of the coat closet for her real present, a much needed new sewing machine. Zero to hero in 20 seconds flat.
In Holland there is quite a tradition for this kind of thing around the fest of St Nicholas. A classic, also used by myself as a teen, was to wrap your present carefully in a plastic bag then surround it by cottonwool which you then covered in a sticky substance like apple butter or peanut butter. It’s a huge mess to unwrap.
We did the nesting boxes trick one year to one of my aunts. We had Christmas at her house that year, and she had this ALF Christmas tree ornament that she kept making a big deal about. (I don’t remember why, I guess she was a fan of the TV show or something.) At some point during the evening, the ornament mysteriously disappeared. Which really sent her over the edge, muttering curses about whichever lousy SOB stole her ALF.
My aunt’s birthday is New Year’s Eve. One my other aunts, the baby sister, was the one who stole ALF. Her plan was to let her sister go on about her stolen ALF for about a week and then give it back to her for her birthday. So we wrapped ALF in a small box, inside another box, etc. about six boxes deep as her birthday present. She was delighted when she opened the last box and “My ALF!”
These days, my wrapping present sneak is hiding the present and then forgetting where I put it. But that is the same for everything I am looking for. One day it will be there where I put it, next time its gone. Look for something else, the first item turns up!
Not related to Christmas, but a surprise gift that went wrong. Some friends were getting married, and I printed up a Bible verse and framed it. Then went to Home Depot and got a $100.00 gift certificate (printed on paper). I ignored a thought (tape the gift certificate to the frame), and just put the gift certificate in the tissue paper. I did not live close by, so I took the present to the wedding. About a year later, there was a party at her house, and she gave a tour of her home. She pointed out my framed Bible verse and indicated I had given it to them. The way she mentioned the gift (in a tone that indicated it was a cheap gift) and she didn’t say anything else and I realized they had NOT SEEN the gift certificate. I wanted to ask “What did you get with the Home Depot gift certificate?”, but realized there was most likely no way to correct the problem, so I didn’t say anything.
She liked the gift a lot, although she was kinda pissed at all the bullshit it took to get to it.