Today is all about ideas for wrapping Christmas presents. Oh boy, Um, not one of my strengths. At all.
I do personally prefer to open wrapped gifts as opposed to simply pull items out of gift bags. However, of course, I appreciate any gift someone took the time prepare for me. And living surrounded by men, most my gifts are in gift bags.
Funny thing there is that, my husband can actually wrap presents beautifully. Of course, he must have the table and the scissors and everything set up just so to do it. I’m more of a wrap presents on the bed or floor kind of person. The kind of person who loses the scissors. And the tape. Then, has to cut paper more than once or add more.
So you can probably guess what packages I wrapped might look like compared to ones my husband wraps And of course, who wraps most of our packages? Yep, the lose the scissors/tapes/sloppy lady.
Not much to share on this topic today as I’m a pretty straight-forward buy my wrapping paper. Usually, I buy it at Hallmark.
Funny Story About Attempting To Make My Own Wrapping Paper
You know those people who are crafty and everything they touch just looks beautiful? Could wrap a present in yesterday’s newspaper (well, back when they were more common) and it look like the world’s most special present? Yeah, not me.
When the boys were very young (probably preschool/early elementary), I read one of those what I refer to as “guilt-trip” parenting magazines. And it was all about recycling (not a bad thing) and how to make our own wrapping paper out of newspaper. Oh, and of course, a fun craft activity for the kids! So, we attempted to cut christmas tree shapes in potatoes or maybe it was apple stars. Stamped it on the newspaper, wrapped some gifts in this “masterpiece” paper. Trust me it wasn’t the kind of paper you save because it was so pretty or even so overdone ugly it was pretty.
I’ll never forget my husband coming home from work and looking at me puzzled, asking, is our budget so bad we can’t afford wrapping paper? Yes, the packages looked that bad. The kids didn’t wrap them and honestly, weren’t over enthused on the whole make our own wrapping paper idea either so it didn’t bother them. They probably don’t even remember.
One Quick Tip If Santa Gifts Come Wrapped
Borrowed this idea late in the game (kids were pretty close to knowing just how much Mrs. Claus helped with things) but sometimes at our house, Santa leaves the roll of the different kind of wrapping paper he used on his gifts so we can wrap presents with it next year.
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Be sure to go check out Tamy’s post over at Chasing My Life, she has lots of great wrapping ideas over there.
I laughed a lot at this post. I actually don’t mind wrapping gifts, and I think I’m pretty good at it. There were a couple years when I tried just using gift bags and none of us really liked it that way. My younger son tends to be a ‘leave it in the shopping bag or shipping box’ kind of wrapper. I’ve scolded him about it. LOL “Oh but it’s the thought that counts!” Not if it looks like it was all an inconvenience to the one shoving it at you.
And yeah, I’m buying that wrapping paper, not trying to make my own. I usually buy a couple rolls on after-Christmas clearance to use for the next year.
I’ve seen some people do it where each kid has all their gifts wrapped in the same paper so it’s easy to identify whose is whose. I kinda don’t like that. I’ve also tried a couple different times to just use the same design for everything, having it all look trendy and glamorous under the tree. Usually though, I prefer to use a few different rolls of somewhat matching paper and just randomly wrap things, so there is a pleasant mix under the tree.
I’ve been trying to use up all our extra paper this year but usually I like to go to Hallmark around this time as it’s usually one a buy one get one sale. My late MIL used to do the different papers for the different kids when my husband and his brother were younger. However, it was because they always guessed their gifts and so she started doing it that way and not putting any tags on anything. Ha. I always thought that story was funny. Hope you are having a great weekend so far.