What's the wrapping like at your house.

[graciegirl]

We are Christmas people. That means that we wrap a lot of gifts. That doesn't mean we spend a lot of money. We give underwear and kitchen things and stupid things someone gave to us. Our family likes the sound of tearing paper on Christmas...

My question is, how do you wrap gifts? Our oldest daughter always has a theme, and all of her gifts are always this years paper and tags, all very sophisticated. Our Helene is a bag woman and she deftly sticks hers into gift bags (recyled from as far back as the civil war) adds some tissue (also reused) and she is good to go.

Sweetie wraps with the seam upward. He doesn't invert his package. We always know when the seam is on the top, it is from dad.

I put messages on mine.... to you from Elmer the elf. To you from the parent who loves you most, etc. etc. I think they are clever. The others groan a lot.

Some people don't wrap at all. Some people don't give gifts, but we do.

So what ever you do on Christmas, may it be joyful and happy and lovely and good. May your main gifts be in your heart and to your heart. Merry Christmas from us.

Please talk about how your gifts are wrapped at your house.

[swrinfla]

Gracie:

Time was when I obsessed with making sure the wrapping was perfect, had no tape showing (used a lot of double-stick) and always had at least a half-way decent bow!

Now, of course, most of what I give to my daughters and their husbands are shipped from somebody else, so the packages arrive in a "plain brown wrapper." :censored:

But, those that I still send myself are wrapped. I don't even attempt bows, though, because they'd just be crushed!

And, now, ALL my packages show bits and pieces of tape!

A long-standing tradition, dating from my late wife's parents - so at least the late 1940's - is that every guest at Christmas Eve Dinner gets a small table present. These are always wrapped identically, even though they may be of varying sizes. I continue this practice to this day; indeed, I wrapped this year's gifts just yesterday!

My pursuit of perfection in wrapping has gone by the wayside; certainly, it did so many years ago. When I'm with family on Christmas morning, I've observed that no one pays any attention to the wrapping, anyway! :22yikes:

Except maybe my niece: she always scoops up all the bows, so she can be sure to have a good selection for next year!

May you and yours have the most joyful Christmas ever!

SWR
:beer3:

[In awe of TV]

I was an internet shopper this year and had gifts directly mailed from whomever I ordered from, to my kids located on each coast. For a couple of the online gifts, I also ordered gift wrapping to a tune of $5.95 each.

When the kids were young, I would wrap everything real pretty with beautiful paper and ribbons and each year had a color theme. One year, all gold and green wrapping, the next blue and silver wrapping and so on.

This year I'm traveling to Reno for the holidays and didn't put up the tree at home so I had no gifts to display. I try to be a little imaginative - I also mailed gifts via USPS where I wrapped them in decorative tissue paper and attached ornaments to serve as toppers. One small box wrapped in tissue paper was put in a silk pouch and tied with ribbon. My daughter's dog will be getting homemade doggie biscuits enclosed in tupperware which I will place into a decorative Santa's stocking.

Like I said, I was much better at wrapping when the presents were displayed around the tree for all to see. :wave:

[Mudder]

When the kids were little and all relatives lived near each other it was not so how much how gifts are wrapped , it was more about the differing opening styles. We had the "Uncle Bob" school of opening gifts - rip the paper as fast as you can, throw it anywhere, glance at the gift and say "NEXT". We had the "Auntie Nancy" slow production of unwrapping, neatly folding the paper before looking at the gift, then looking the giver in the eye and profusely thanking them whiole others were yelling , "Ok, Ok, move on". We had the "kids" method - all kids can open one gift at the same time, check everyone else's gift and immediately try to bargain for a switch. I think the classic tho was always the "Grammie"(not me) style. While painfully slowly slipping a finger under the tape talking how about how sweet and lovely the paper was, then saying , "Nance, do you want to keep this paper?", next slowly moving the tissure paper and saying what a lovely gift , but I really don't need anything. For her finale she would hold the gift high and slowly pan around the room with it so all could see it. Afterwards, she asked if there was a receipt just in case she wanted to return it.
That's how we spent Christmas morning !

[kandj]

When our kids were small we had 2 sets of wrapping paper. One that was used for gifts that went under the tree before Christmas and the kids could choose from whatever was in that set to wrap up gifts and most of the time we created tags from the paper. I never used bows much unless it was created from curling ribbon.

The other set was kept hidden. All the gifts from "Santa" were wrapped with that set. Each person had a different roll or color that was used for their gifts and EVERYTHING in the stocking was wrapped. The way one could tell whose gifts were under the tree was based on what matched from their stocking. I never put tags on the stuff from Santa.

When I was growing up, we took turns opening gifts on Christmas with each one opening their gift and them moving on to the next person. My husband's family would sort/hand out the gifts and then it was utter chaos as each one tore into their gifts. When I saw how they did it, I told him that there was no way I could handle that. To this day, we still open them one at time - makes it last longer that way.

He and I stopped exchanging gifts several years back when we started to travel for the holidays. We're both happy with that because we get what we want. Although once in a while we will buy something for each other "just because".

[chuckinca]

We have been reusing the same Christmas Gift boxes for about the last ten years. They are decorated boxes that fit inside each other so that there are about 10 boxes in one large box. I think we have 5 or so different sets of these that are decorated differently. Add tissue paper, the gift and close it up! Don't even have to put names on them, each person gets all the boxes that look alike. They can be stacked up about five feet high and sort of look like a Christmas tree.

My wife was just leaving to go to Michael's because they have some things on sale for $6 down from $24 today only. One of which is a rock tumbler; I said didn't we used to have a rock tumbler about 20 years ago and she came back with yes and you threw it out because it made too much noise in the garage. Michael's is a 35 mile drive thru the mountains (in the rain) - to get another rock tumbler (polisher); on sale. She intends to give these sale items to our three grandkids in Denver next June when we stop there on our drive back to CA from TV. As I recall the first rock tumbler was a gift our son got when he was about 7; he never got into it because watching a noisy tumbler spin for hours on end wasn't his idea of fun. Wonder if kids have changed that much in 20 years?

So I asked her to give me the Christmas boxes before she left so that I could "wrap" her gifts. We went up to the attic, being careful that the cat following us was the small female, Bebe, that wouldn't hide in the attic, and would follow directions to leave when told. She started going thru cardboard boxes marked Xmas to find the boxes of boxes. After a couple misses, she found one that had two types - so I had a choice. And she said that the tissue is in a long plastic box in the outside storage shed. Means I have to go out in the rain too.


.

[graciegirl]

OH CHUCK!

Mikey, one of our three furry friends, followed Sweetie to the attic yesterday morning at about 8 when he went for Christmas boxes....and we didn't realize he was missing until last night at midnight. After going through everything, under everything on three floors...we found him meowing pitifully in the cold attic.

Whew.

[chuckinca]

GG:

We used to have a Japanese Bobtail female named Mickey that would follow us up a drop down step ladder to the attic in our old house and then she would go back under the eaves where we couldn't get her and refuse to come down. Had to leave the ladder down so she would come out when she felt like it.

This attic space is at the same level as the second floor and there is a door to it from the bathroom - no stair climbing to get to it.

Bebe does have a habit of getting stuck in the coat closet for hours on end tho.

.

[pooh]

When we were young, special presents, like my indoor roller rink skates, weren't wrapped. They were set in among the other presents. Maybe Mom and Dad were tired of wrapping at that point... ;)

As a teen, there were many presents to be wrapped and exchanged with friends and each of us tried to make the little boxes we gave (it was always a piece of costume jewelry) look extra special.

When my son was young, it was just wrap the present and stick on a bow. When he was older, I really started to wrap each present to look special. Wide wired ribbon, special paper ribbons, decorations for the bows, special paper and careful cutting and taping. Each gift looked really nice. I remember my brother-in-law saying his gifts looked too pretty to open.

For the years our son and his family didn't live near us, I bought online and had items shipped. My grandkids thought cardboard Amazon boxes were gift boxes and how presents from Grandma and Grandpa were wrapped...lol.

This year I wrapped each gift in pretty paper but didn't put any bows. Just used curly ribbon. The grandkids rip the items open the minute you give them something, they're young and the prize inside is much more important than the decorative outer shell. Hubby and I give small things to each other, mostly because we buy whatever we want throughout the year. Besides, it's much more fun to watch the kids tear through the paper and to see the look of surprise on the faces of our son and daughter-in-law when they open their gifts.

Merry Christmas, Gracie, to you and yours.

[jblum8156]

I remember when I was a little girl the department store where my mother shopped would wrap Christmas gifts for a small charge. I loved watching the gift wrapping ladies. I was inspired - I thought I would like to be a gift wrapper when I grew up. Anyway, my mom and I spent lots of time wrapping gifts, and the packages were beautiful. I don't do it now.

[Pturner]

I remember when I was a little girl the department store where my mother shopped would wrap Christmas gifts for a small charge. I loved watching the gift wrapping ladies. I was inspired - I thought I would like to be a gift wrapper when I grew up. Anyway, my mom and I spent lots of time wrapping gifts, and the packages were beautiful. I don't do it now.

When I was a little girl, I used to wrap Christmas presents for customers at my dad's store. To this day, when I use wrapping paper rather than gift bags, I cut the paper to just the right size, and tuck the paper so that all the seams are folded and are exactly at the bottom edge of the box. I used to make bows, but don't anymore. I reuse gift boxes as long as they hold up.

I could never say this better than Gracie did, so I will humbly repeat it from my heart:
What ever you do on Christmas, may it be joyful and happy and lovely and good. May your main gifts be in your heart and to your heart. Merry Christmas from us.

[butchnharri]

:angel:

When I was a little girl my mother would wrap each gift as if it were the only gift we would get. She carefully picked the right paper and ribbon to match. usually the wide fancy ribbon to make a very big bow and almost always added an ornament to adorn each bow. I still do that myself and I was looking at the beautiful packages under the tree and told my husband I should go into a gift wrapping service/ service next year. I really put a lot of care into each package. I'll have to think about that for next year. I have alot of beautiful ribbon and fancy papers. it would be fun to get paid doing something I love doing.

[2newyorkers]

I like to bag my gifts and my honey likes to wrap. Honey puts tags on the gifts with cute from names on them. When the children were young the from name was Rudolph, etc. Now it is usually characters from books which range from the obscure to the popular, Odysseus to Scout. Merry Christmas everyone!