I love buying presents. I don't always like trying to decide what people want. But if I know the person relatively well and know that I can give them something they will enjoy, I get a lot of pleasure out of being able to give them a treat.
And I like the idea of wrapping presents.
I like buying all the stuff to wrap presents.
I love buying different patterns of wrapping paper and ribbon. I like buying boxes and tissue paper.
But the prospect of actually wrapping everything feels daunting.
First of all, you have to assemble all the stuff needed. And if you're like me, you don't have a whole wrapping station, with all the supplies readily at hand. So I usually grab the obvious stuff—the paper (I like having a lot of variety in paper so it's usually several different rolls of paper), the ribbons (many different rolls of ribbon and bags of bows), a scissors, and if I'm on my game that day I remember to actually grab the gifts I need to wrap.
We have a small house, so to have privacy when I'm wrapping gifts, I'm usually crouched on my bedroom floor, trying to clear space between a pile of unfolded laundry and shoes that are spread around. It's not what anyone would call ideal an wrapping environment.
So, once I've gathered the wrapping supplies, then I have to open the shipping boxes the gifts were delivered in. I grab a box, cut through the packing tape (hopefully I don't cut into the actual gift—this has happened before) and I toss the box and the bubble wrapping aside. Then I have to find a gift box to put that item back into, which requires me to haul myself off the ground, out of my bedroom, out into the livingroom (where the wrapping stuff is piled) to try and find a box that fits.
Then I go back into my bedroom, close the door (sometimes having to chase the dog out because there's just not enough room to deal with him, and settle myself back on the ground). I hopefully have remembered to grab tissue paper, because I'm tired at this point and don't want to have to get up again. If I have all the stuff, I try to fold the item neatly, pretending I work at the Gap in an effort to make it look like it is actually the new item that it is and not a wrinkled mess that I grabbed out of my laundry bin and shoved into a box.
Once I've gotten the box/folding situation sorted out, I have to try and figure out how much wrapping paper I need. If the room isn't a complete mess, and there's enough floor space, I can roll out a bunch of wrapping paper and try to eyeball the length and width needed to cover the box. Sometimes this has to happen more than once because I am apparently very bad at visualizing how much paper is needed to cover a box surface and I find a very frustrating inch of uncovered box when I try to wrap the paper around it. There are also times I cut way too much paper, which then requires me to awkwardly cut off a strip of two or three inches of paper off the end, while trying to hold it somewhat wrapped around the box so I don't cut too much off.
After the paper is finally cut, I usually realize that I've forgotten the tape and I have to haul myself back off the ground, zip out of the bedroom, and find some tape. Once tape has been acquired, I have to go back into the bedroom and once again wrap the paper around the box to secure it with tape. I can't even describe how cumbersome trying to get the end bits to fold evenly and flatly. Sometimes there's way too much paper, which makes it everything cumbersome and lumpy. It's supposed to look like an envelope. All the ends are supposed to somehow line up. Mine never do.
And sometimes once I've folded the ends over, there's not quite enough paper—which is a calamity because there's no way I'm going all the way back to re-cutting the paper. Sometimes wrapping paper patches have to be improvised.
When the wrapping paper is actually wrapped around the box and all the loose bits have been taped down, then comes the ribbon part.
Now the ribbon is tricky. Actually, one of the amazing thing I discovered when I married my husband were the little pre-made bows that you can just pop on. For some reason we didn't use those growing up and I had it in my mind that it was "cheating" to use them. But my husband used them—and it was a bit liberating to be able to just pop a little bow in the corner and be done. However, I actually love loose ribbon, and try to do a combination of ribbon wrapped around the box along with a pre-made bow. Seems like a good compromise.
Once the ribbon as been applied, the gift is looking good! It has the wrapping and the ribbon. This is when I realize that I've forgotten to grab the to/from labels. I have to put these on immediately because there have been unfortunate times when I have forgotten who the wrapped presents were for and they have to be unwrapped, which is no good. Nobody wants to have to wrap a present twice.
So I drag myself off the floor once again, hobble out of my room, back into the livingroom, dig through the wrapping box and find the labels. Sometimes, I remember to grab a pen on my way back into my room, sometimes I don't and then have to turn around to grab one.
Then it's done. The gift is wrapped, and ribboned, and labeled.
And I'm usually pretty satisified with myself. I feel accomplished.
But then, when it's the holidays, I realize I have to repeat the whole process times a hundred. Okay, maybe not a hundred, but if feels like a lot.
The first couple of presents usually have nicely coordinated wrapping and ribbon. There might even be crisp creases and a fancy extra loop of bows. But the rest of them get hastily thrown together because my patience and time dwindles rapidly.
And by the end, I'm exhausted (probably a little grumpy) and the room is a chaotic mess of discarded wrapping bits—an explosion of holiday detritus. I've been crouched in an awkward position for too long. I've had to get myself up and down off the floor a few dozen times. I've lost and found the scissors over and over. I've had to shoo away the cats and let them in and out of the room a few times.
Sheesh.
But it's always worth it when the gifts are stacked under the tree. And it's definitely worth it watching my family joyfully tear open the wrapping on Christmas morning.
My mother is, not surprisingly (given all her artistic talents), a very good gift wrapper.
***
A note from Toni: I laughed out loud at your gift-wrapping adventures, Mara. Actually, the reason I'm so good at it is that my father owned a gift shop on Hollywood Blvd and, when I was young (I had to be quite young because he died when I was 10), at Christmastime when school was out, I went with him to work and stand behind the counter, wrapping holiday gifts all day. I love it. I felt so grown up.
In fact, I got so good at it that when I was in my 20s, I got a job because I could wrap presents so nicely. It was a small gift shop in our town that prided itself on its fancy gift-wrapping—year round. (Anyone from Davis will remember the store Discoveries.) After a short interview with the owner, she took me to the wrapping station and told me to wrap a present. A few minutes later, she hired me!
(Mara note: Discoveries was notorious for their wrapping. They did special paper, with fancy little dried flowers, fat ribbons looped in a distinctive way, with an embossed gold Discoveries sticker. Gifts from Discoveries were very distinctive--like getting a Tiffany box.)
Mara and I would love to how about you. Do you enjoy wrapping presents? Are you good at it?
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