Is This You: Wrap it up

Walk into any store during the last 3-4 months of the year and you will at some point be swept up into a sea of colored everything offered for decoration. That will include wrapping paper for all those wonderful presents you are going to present to anyone present on Christmas morning. Or for a few who live on the other side of the street and have done the unwrapping wrong for years, on Christmas Eve. Oh my. There’s a debate you don’t want to get me started on. Where was I? Oh wrapping paper.

Gifts come in all different manner of size, shape and texture. There is more than a 50/50 chance that at some point you have found yourself sitting on the floor trying to disguise something big and with a shape that would let out the surprise. Like a cello or a four foot tall soft and fluffy teddy bear or six foot long antique two man hand saw. The complete opposite is trying to disguise a tiny present. One with sparkly goodies inside. One that dangles on a golden chain or bangles off a wrist or adornes a slender finger. Oh I have slipped on the icy side of Christmas haven’t I? I am such a girl. Anyway those little boxes have their own set of problems in keeping the secret a secret until the time is nigh. But! Yes a gift wrapped “but.” HOHOHO. But before you get all wrapped up in wrapping those gifts you have to choose just the right paper and ribbon and bows and tape. Oh the tape you will choose is very important.

From past experience I can attest to the fact that if you find a wayward roll of tape in a drawer, one that may have been in there since the last century turned, you need to cough up a few dollars and buy a new roll. You will find that no matter how much patience you have that tape will come off that roll and split or tear so you have to find the end over and over again. Or it missed the station of getting covered with sticky stuff when it was manufactured and it barely sticks then comes undone so you push it down and it sticks then comes undone. Trust me here. If you find that roll in the bottom or back of a drawer—it’s there for a reason. Just buy new and save yourself. Aarrgghh!

Choosing just the right paper is an adventure. I spent a few minutes watching the picking cycle at a store. There were boxes lined up on two sides of a long aisle with what I am sure would have measured 44 miles long if all rolled out end to end. Trees, Santa’s of all different designs, holly and berries, Donald Duck and Goofy whatever those two characters have to do with Christmas. I even saw one box with an array of skulls and axes and things that I am sure must have been linked to some video game. There were the shiny rolls and glittery rolls and rolls of flocked designs. Then the buyers came into view.

People checking out rolls of wrapping paper, and that includes yours truly, are very picky. Some know they want uncluttered paper and go right for the shiny plain paper. I like those. Some will slide rolls up, look them over and let them fall back into the box with a ker-plunk. Some will pick by the size, the big rolls with the largest square footage listed on the label. Those parents have something big to wrap and hopefully not more than 36.4 square foot in size. It’s a crap shoot because really how does the average person know how many square feet it will take to cover a Barbie Dream House or a BMX bike at 11:36 p.m. on Christmas Eve?

It’s a wonderful time when Christmas is coming to a crescendo, gifts are bought and the wrapping is in full swing. In check-out lines you can see all the picks and paper choices being loaded on counters to be put into bags that are too short to hold them while the shoppers fumble them to the car. They are slick and round and go in all different directions when you try to corral them.

That’s why gift bags are now such a wonderful way to give gifts. Personally I like to use the funny papers from the newspaper to wrap a lot of gifts. Colorful, delivered to my home, flat. Of course I have never had to try to wrap a GI Joe Jeep with Blondie and Snoopy. Enjoy wrapping it up and remember the reason for the season!

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram or at itybytrina@yahoo.com