Wrap it Up!

I was recently reminded of how life changes. Someone put it this way…

I’m pretty certain that when I was a kid, most people actually wrapped their gifts. You know, in boxes, and with wrapping paper and too much clear-tape? As I got older, and the gift bags became popular, I started receiving fewer and fewer wrapped presents.

Growing up, bags were only used for the oddly shaped bottle of wine – not for everything under the sun. Part of the challenge was to wrap the action figure toy in such a way as to conceal its identity or better yet, putting a small gift inside multiple boxes to make the effort more interesting (perfect for the diamond earrings or the deck of cards). We?ve all done it ? found the biggest box we could for the smallest item or added dead weight to mislead the other person trying to guess what they got. My sister literally added a brick to the box she used to wrap a music CD she gave me. As a kid, I used to wrap all my gifts in the Sunday comics. It was both festive (bright colors) and cheap.

Maybe it?s the mystery of it all or the thrill of tearing through the paper, but I get more exited by the anticipation of a wrapped gift than I do with a gift bag. 9 times out of 10, it?s probably just a gift certificate and card anyway ? a good gift, just not very entertaining to witness. Now my grandma was pretty good about this. It took me a while to catch on as a kid but she didn?t like to see a Christmas tree without nay presents. What she did was to wrap empty boxes and place them under her tree. Then she would slowly replace the ?fake? gifts with real ones. She actually kept them from year to year, so after seeing the same long, triangle shaped box 3 years in a row, I finally caught on.

Today, nobody seems to take the same pride in wrapping gifts. I think this is mostly due to our own ?I?m so busy? lifestyle that we usually pick up the gift bag (and the gift for that matter) on our way to the party. I realize that so many items we give are hard to wrap and that I?m no better about the gift bag than anyone else, but I think we should make a point to wrap the gifts we give whenever possible. I love buying gifts from The Manly Man Co and I always have them beautifully wrapped. It just makes it that much more fun. Hey, if I can successfully wrap a box the size of an under-counter fridge, I think you can manage to wrap that new DVD you picked up.