Thursday, December 18, 2008

The annual Christmas wrapping fest

A roll of tape sits on my desk. Piles of wrapping paper lie in the room. It has come -- the great present wrapping day. Somehow, the role of Christmas present wrapper has devolved to me. My dh early on declared that as he never wrapped gifts professionally, he does not have to do any except mine...It has been no good me protesting that at I Magnin's mostly all I had to do was put the gift in a box and tie a ribbon and it was when I was a teenager. There again, the amount of tape he uses...
For a number of years, I tried to interest him by bringing up all the presents and wrapping after the children had gone to bed...BUT no luck. It is just easier to do it during the day with the carols on full blast and a cup of something warm by my side.
Thankfully, I only tried making my own wrapping paper one year -- potato prints on wall paper lining paper. The children were all under ten and had a great time making paper for Daddy's presents. It is though a rather messy job. Now I stick with the store bought paper.
The other snag in the system is that he likes the presents to appear as if by magic on Christmas Eve. This means not only do I have to wrap them. I have to make sure they go back to their hiding places/find new hiding places...There was the year where I forgot some of the hiding places...
The children break up from school tomorrow so the deadline is fast approaching.
Of course my characters are talking to me, whispering their stories to me, so I keep having hold that thought moments...which can be difficult when you are wrestling wrapping paper into submission...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wishing you a lovely Christmas. Thanks for all the helpful and interesting information over the year.

Donna Alward said...

We have a present mountain....usually the spare bed in the basement. It starts with one or two prezzies and then grows as each parcel arrives from relatives. On Christmas Eve, Darrell brings it all upstairs, the kids bring me the presents and I organize them under the tree. Yes I know, shocking me being the one to organize. It is what I do best....

Then the kids open one gift (selected by me) and we read The Night Before Christmas.

I've never tried my own paper, but most years we make our own tags.

Avi J said...

Making gift paper sounds like a good way to save money. Every time l say l will just buy a large role of gift paper and wrap all the gifts, l end up seeing some cute one that applies to one person or the other. Oh well I am hoping for more self control next year. lol