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Health & Fitness

All Wrapped Up

I'm jealous of people who can wrap a present and have it look like someone with opposable thumbs wrapped it

Somewhere near the top of the list of Things that Require Physical Coordination that I am incapable of doing is wrapping presents.  As this is December, there are a lot of presents to be wrapped.

The easy answer is gift bags.  Gift bags have a lot to recommend them.  They can be made to look attractive by (almost) anyone, and are easy to use and reusable until the seams start to split or until someone thoughtlessly puts a non-removable “To: Lori  From: Your Best Friend Ever” sticker in an obvious place over the decorations.  Of course, nine times out of ten when I personally use a gift bag, I can’t make the tissue paper look all cute and poufy like everyone else can.  It looks as if I’ve wadded the tissue up after using it for a housekeeping task and then lobbed it from across the room at the bag.  The other downside is that when keeping presents around children for a gift giving occasion to occur Not Right This Minute, it is awfully easy to peek around the tissue paper and see what is in it.  Hard to keep a surprise in an easily accessible package.

So, I’m stuck with using wrapping paper.  Also, I have about 86 million billion kajillion rolls of wrapping paper because my children, and all my friends' children, sell over priced wrapping paper each year as a fundraiser for the PTO and I feel obligated to buy anything children are selling.  Furthermore, the joy of tearing up wrapping paper is part of the fun of getting a present. 

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I try.  I really do try.  In theory, I do know how to do this.  I know to cut the paper the length of the two long and two short sides of the box.  I know to leave enough on the sides to cover the sides.  I know to pull it as tightly as I can so it doesn’t look loose and rumpley.  I know to use the tape the long way so as to maximize the sticking.  I know to fold over the edges and tuck them underneath and pull up the flap.  Still, the end result always looks as if I wrapped the present in the dark.  With my toes. 

And, heaven forbid the present isn’t a square or rectangle.  I have to smush the wrapping paper on and quickly fling a strip of tape on to hold it long enough for me to get the six or seven other strips of tape on that will hold the whole thing together.  I usually have to get scraps of wrapping paper to fill in the holes inevitably left by my crooked wrapping job.  Although I don’t usually bother with bows on rectangular presents, I do have to use bows on oddly shaped presents, or they are likely to be picked up and thrown out with the balled up wrapping paper scraps they look like.

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I feel badly about this, though I know I shouldn’t.  I really do appreciate the artistry that goes in to a present wrapped using hospital corners with a bow that actually matches the wrapping paper.   When I do use a bow it is usually one I found on the floor of the coat closet and I have to pick off dust bunnies and stray pieces of schmutz from the used up sticky part.  Then I have to figure out a way to get it to stick on the present without the use of the original stickum and without getting tape all over the place which is another esthetical disaster to go along with my lousy wrapping job.

I do, however, think I am pretty good about picking out what goes IN the present.  Of course, probably everyone thinks they are, even the ones who give you the stuff that immediately goes into the closet everyone has in their houses for re-gifting.  In theory, it is what is in the present that matters.  The thought behind the gift: that you were in a store and thinking of your friend/relative/coworker/secret Santa recipient when you said, “This.  Of all the things in this store or any other, this is what will make her happy.”  Or fulfill my obligation.  Or whatever. 

In sum, friends, and other recipients of the thoughtful crap I’ve bought all year and stored away until the appropriate gift giving occasion came around: please.  Judge me by the gift, not the package it came in.  Unless you don’t like the gift, either.  In which case, just smile and say thank you and give it to someone else who might like it better.  I’m ok with that.

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