When I was a little girl I used to LOVE to help my mom wrap Christmas presents. I’d put my finger on the ribbon while she tied a knot, hand her pieces of tape when she needed them, and find gift tags that matched the wrapping paper. At some point I was promoted from my apprenticeship and allowed to wrap gifts myself. My first efforts were a little shaky but I improved steadily and it wasn’t long before my mother gave the job of wrapping entirely over to me. As it turns out, she hates wrapping presents. In fact, she used to get panic attacks thinking about all the presents she had to wrap for myself and my two brothers, not to mention the rest of her family. So when she saw that I got giddy at the thought of rolls of crisp, shiny paper, spools of delicate curling ribbon, and endless piles of presents waiting to be made into works of holiday art, Mom joyfully handed over the reins.
I’ve been doing all the family’s Christmas wrapping (for every holiday I’ve been at home) ever since. I love seeing the pile of paper-clad presents sitting prettily under the tree, and watching it grow as I complete each gift. And somewhere around the 23rd or 24th of December a cluster of gift bags joins the collection – these are the presents for me. ;-)
For the past two years I have been blessed with a job at which I am responsible for the annual holiday gifts to customers which means I get to wrap about 100 presents. And I get paid. It’s my favorite time of the whole year. I set up a little “Santa’s Workshop” in the conference room and have an assembly line of tissue paper and bags and foil and ribbon. It’s FANTASTIC! I finished this year’s customer gifts last week and I must say, I am quite proud of the results.
Then, this past weekend I did a little holiday bonding with my mother, and while we drank pumpkin spice coffee and watched our favorite Christmas movies for the 872nd time, I set to work on Mom’s Christmas stash. Ta da!
But this year’s prize for best wrapped present goes to a gift from my mom to her brother-in-law. She bought him a series of seven books, but she had to buy them each separately as they are not sold as a set. I played around with the books for a while, trying to decide what the most interesting way to present them would be, and ultimately went with this:
Isn’t it beautiful? (That’s a rhetorical question. If you don’t think it’s beautiful then bugger off.)
I’ve got a few presents left to wrap and I’m already mourning the end of wrapping season. If anyone in the St. Louis area would like assistance adorning their holiday gifts just let me know!
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