This photo is from when I was seven, and what I like about it is that Mother posed me as if I had anything to do with wrapping all those presents. This is how I know I didn’t: they look pretty good. I was, and continue to be to this day, the worst wrapper of gifts. Mother was adept at it. Lynne is amazing. So was Steve R–his gifts were wrapped like little works of art.
When I sit down to wrap gifts, it becomes The Christmas Moron: A Comedy in One Act. I’m sitting in the SAME spot. How do I repeatedly lose my pen, the tape, and the name tags? Why is all the paper I cut the wrong size even when I’ve done all the tricks to make sure it’s right? Why, when I’m cutting the paper, do the scissors take on a life of their own, weaving and bobbing like Otis Campbell the Mayberry Town Drunk? And why, when I thought I picked up the brand new roll of tape, does it turn out to be the one that runs out? Or the one with the defective jagged thingies that mangle and twist the tape?
By the time I’m through, I’m all MERRY FREAKING CHRISTMAS.
Today I received a catalog in the mail from Home Decorators Collection. (This is NOT a sponsored post.) As I was idly paging through it, I spotted this little darling piece of furniture:
The one in the catalog was a color called “Rhododendron Leaf,” but no matter. For a moment, I might have drooled. I imagined a life of wrapping gifts and packages to be mailed with everything right at hand, all organized and pretty. I understood why Candy Spelling had one room just for this purpose in her 123-room mansion.
Then I remembered I didn’t win that stupid Powerball, and I went in search of another roll of tape while a dog hair tumbleweed drifted across the floor.
LOL, been there, done that … and will be doing it again when it becomes wrapping time.
Mr. Bill always wraps gifts you don’t want to open because they look so beautiful. But I think that defeats the purpose of giving a gift.
Sometimes with those gifts I start out all nice, but midway in, I’m ripping them apart and flinging paper and ribbon like a four-year-old.
Only children really know how to open a gift with enthusiasm.
And know how to let you know how woefully inadequate some of those gifts are. The gift-opening scene in A Christmas Story nails it!
I thought it was only me who had all those issues with wrapping presents! Which is why I wait till the very last minute to wrap everything because even though I know it is suppose to put you all in the mood and everything I just end up either taking a Xanax after or drinking a bottle of wine!
You left an unopened bottle of wine in the fridge. Come wrap my Christmas presents, and I’ll open it for you!
present wrapping solution. Pack your gifts in the car. Drive to Barnes & Noble, every one I have ever been to has a group for a charity sitting there wrapping presents for a donation this time of year. They handle the scissors, they have tape and wrapping paper. When they are are done – give them the donation and get the hell out. While you are waiting you can even check out books.
But…this doesn’t give me the opportunity to hurl scissors across the room, feed the vortex that survives on misplaced pens, and shriek at people, “GET OUT OF HERE!” while I’m trying to conceal their as-yet-unwrapped gifts with plastic bags and heavy furniture.
you could do it in the store … bigger audience
Good point!
Couldn’t Tom and Tim club together and buy you one next year..?
Mum and Chris give me their presents to wrap as I do it so much better than them. I think it’s just a good excuse to get out of present-wrapping…
They could, but I wouldn’t have anywhere to put it. If you lived near me, I’d find some way to make you do all my wrapping, too!
Perhaps Tom can buy you a bigger house…? :o)
Ha! Too much to clean. I’ll just give up my idea of a mansion with a room devoted to wrapping presents. And my recipients must give up on beautifully wrapped packages.