December 17, 2017 – Pretty paper, pretty ribbons
of blue . . .
Everyone
has gone to gift bags now and I still like the look of a box wrapped with a bow
– call me old fashioned, it suits me. I
held off for years using the gift bag, but then I even acquiesce to gift bags
when the present won’t fit in a box.
But, part of me still considers it ‘sheer laziness’. That is completely unfair because it is the
new, modern way and I need to get with it and lower my standards. Okay, Okay, my standards are now lowered for
other people, but not for me – is that okay?
This
year locating gift boxes surprised me. I
went to three different stores before I found old-fashioned white gift boxes to
buy. So, I guess I will be saving the
empty boxes and packing them away with my Christmas ornaments to re-use next
year.
I am
one of those strange people who love to wrap presents. And, on more than one occasion I have jumped
in and helped a stressed out friend wrap her Christmas presents due to too much
work and lack of time. That was a fun afternoon
for me.
The
first year I moved to this county I knew I would have a case of Christmas homesickness
and I applied for a Christmas wrapping job at the mall in order to curb it. [It
worked.] As the new kid among seasoned gift wrappers, I got the lamps and
suitcases and any other difficult thing to wrap. On my feet for a full shift, I didn’t mind, as
I got to enjoy the gift giving people who exuded found-the-right-gift
pride. It was nice to meet and greet the
plain clothes Santas. [PSSST . . . there are a lot of them out there.] I did that for a few years, as it was fun and
management even asked me to come back in January for their inventory count
which was interesting as well.
Over
the years, I actually have lightened up on my standards of gift wrapping. I started out with “all my packages MUST
match” which required that I purchase a truckload of matching wrapping paper
early in the shopping season. Then the
problem came up I would have left over paper and the frugality in me needed to
use it up and I would run out half way through wrapping all my packages the
next year and mismatching came into being, making this purist, unhappy.
Then,
I shifted to one color paper for the packages I used to ship out to my parents,
and friends and another color for what ended up under my tree.
Those were the good
old days when you could actually afford to buy nice presents and then ship them
inexpensively. Now, if you want to ship
a wrapped present sometimes the cost of the present is only one-third the
shipping cost. High shipping costs cut
back my shipping presents out more than lack of money to buy the presents.
Then
I shifted to having some presents delivered directly when I ordered them
through catalogs. I know my Mom missed
my pretty wrapping on those packages because she would always comment on my
paper and my bows when she opened my shipping box and put the packages under
the tree waiting on Christmas.
In
my heyday of wrapping, a few years I cut out black felt scotty dogs roughly the
size of a 3 x 5 card, glued on a google eye and made a little collar with a
plaid ribbon and then glue gunned them on red plaid or solid red paper packages. If the package was large, I’d use two Scotty
dogs with a pair of ribbon leashes to the edge of the package. The first year, Mom called to tell me she
lined up all my packages in a row around the tree and said all the dogs were
following each other around. She also told
me when my Aunts and Uncles visited during Christmas they noticed and commented
on them. So, my crafty, cleverness was
well appreciated.
I am happy I had
those years of great packages for both family and close friends. I still run across a few felt Scotty dog in
the Christmas decoration box or my craft drawers.
I might need to do
that again – then I wouldn’t be in the fix of trying to find coordinating blue
ribbon to match my blue paper. Good idea there!
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