Holidailies Post 15 - Why Do We Wrap Gifts?
Even though I don't have the history that Sis does when it comes to wrapping gifts, I do have some experience. It used to be that I took great pride in that results of my gift wrapping. Precisely folded corners, tape pressed to the paper so well it virtually disappeared, bows chosen to coordinate with the paper, ribbons teased with scissors to produce impossibly bouncy curls. Somewhere along the line that all changed.
Don't get me wrong, I still like to have the corners sharp, and a presentable gift, but it seems to be just so laborious now. I don't know when I changed. I don't know why I changed, but it happened.
I remember as a child watching the gifts below the grow and grow. The cacophony of colors. Reindeer prancing across boxes, Santa driving his sled to and fro. Snowflakes of every shape and size gracing packages here and there. Even more special were the small ones. Tiny boxes fit only for rings, or dice (and yes, I see the oddity of the two combined).
Those were the special ones. Those were the ones that I knew would lead to the greatest treasures. I don't recall the first time it was done by someone in our family, but it does seem that we've had more of them in this house, the house we moved to after Pa passed, than any other. If you were the recipient of one of these small jewels, you knew you had some work in front of you.
You would open the small package, and find a simple folded piece of paper. On the paper, there would be a clue. That clue would lead you to another location in the house, where you would find another package. After opening that one, you would find (wait for it...) another clue. On and on it went, sometimes as many as ten separate clues. All of them pointing you to the mother lode.
Normally, the payoff wasn't even wrapped. This normally was because the end gift was either too large, or of such an odd shape, wrapping wasn't feasible. Over the years, this seemed to become a tradition, at least for my main gift. My mother and brother seemed to take great delight in making it seem as if everything was done, and I would sit (admittedly, slightly dejected) with my gifts (mostly underwear, socks, and the other obligatory safe gifts), until Ma would say something like, Could you go grab the vacuum so we can get some of this cleaned up? And so it would begin.
An Amiga personal computer, a violin, a hand-crafted dulcimer, even the Queen's Royal Starship (that thing was HUGE!). All the great, wondrous gifts, all hidden in various places throughout the house over the years. Through the years, though it would change. Gifts wouldn't get wrapped until late Christmas Eve, there would be no pile under the tree to wonder over for weeks. Sometimes it would even come to gifts being wrapped on Christmas Day.
There was one Christmas even that my brother would gather up all the gift bags and empty boxes from everyone else's already opened gifts, went upstairs, and quickly put his gifts in those packages. No one minded though, it became more of a tradition than anything else.
Here it is Christmas Eve Eve, and none of my presents are wrapped. Even though there are fewer to wrap this year than in years past, I've still managed to put it off to the last minute. There's no hope for wrapping them tonight, as I wore myself out fixing some (surprisingly good) Chinese pork and cabbage. So, it looks like it will come down to wrapping them tomorrow, even though I tell myself each year that I'm going to wrap them long before the deadline. We'll see what happens.
So for those of you who still have wrapping to do, I wish you luck. For those of you who got all your gifts wrapped ahead of time... bah humbug. :^)
._._.
Don't get me wrong, I still like to have the corners sharp, and a presentable gift, but it seems to be just so laborious now. I don't know when I changed. I don't know why I changed, but it happened.
I remember as a child watching the gifts below the grow and grow. The cacophony of colors. Reindeer prancing across boxes, Santa driving his sled to and fro. Snowflakes of every shape and size gracing packages here and there. Even more special were the small ones. Tiny boxes fit only for rings, or dice (and yes, I see the oddity of the two combined).
Those were the special ones. Those were the ones that I knew would lead to the greatest treasures. I don't recall the first time it was done by someone in our family, but it does seem that we've had more of them in this house, the house we moved to after Pa passed, than any other. If you were the recipient of one of these small jewels, you knew you had some work in front of you.
You would open the small package, and find a simple folded piece of paper. On the paper, there would be a clue. That clue would lead you to another location in the house, where you would find another package. After opening that one, you would find (wait for it...) another clue. On and on it went, sometimes as many as ten separate clues. All of them pointing you to the mother lode.
Normally, the payoff wasn't even wrapped. This normally was because the end gift was either too large, or of such an odd shape, wrapping wasn't feasible. Over the years, this seemed to become a tradition, at least for my main gift. My mother and brother seemed to take great delight in making it seem as if everything was done, and I would sit (admittedly, slightly dejected) with my gifts (mostly underwear, socks, and the other obligatory safe gifts), until Ma would say something like, Could you go grab the vacuum so we can get some of this cleaned up? And so it would begin.
An Amiga personal computer, a violin, a hand-crafted dulcimer, even the Queen's Royal Starship (that thing was HUGE!). All the great, wondrous gifts, all hidden in various places throughout the house over the years. Through the years, though it would change. Gifts wouldn't get wrapped until late Christmas Eve, there would be no pile under the tree to wonder over for weeks. Sometimes it would even come to gifts being wrapped on Christmas Day.
There was one Christmas even that my brother would gather up all the gift bags and empty boxes from everyone else's already opened gifts, went upstairs, and quickly put his gifts in those packages. No one minded though, it became more of a tradition than anything else.
Here it is Christmas Eve Eve, and none of my presents are wrapped. Even though there are fewer to wrap this year than in years past, I've still managed to put it off to the last minute. There's no hope for wrapping them tonight, as I wore myself out fixing some (surprisingly good) Chinese pork and cabbage. So, it looks like it will come down to wrapping them tomorrow, even though I tell myself each year that I'm going to wrap them long before the deadline. We'll see what happens.
So for those of you who still have wrapping to do, I wish you luck. For those of you who got all your gifts wrapped ahead of time... bah humbug. :^)
._._.