Wrap it up

I started wrapping gifts last night. After the girls went to bed I got out the wrap and all the trimmings, poured myself a glass of wine, and settled down with a bad movie. I didn't get everything wrapped, but I got a start.

I didn't become an elaborate wrapper until I met hubby. His mom goes wild with the curling ribbon and I think she may have helped him wrap presents that year. That set a standard and I can't tell you how many hours both of us have spent making the presents look good. All that has gone out the window in the past few years where speed and efficiency have become more important than beauty. Add to the fact that the cat will eat the ribbons and I have become a "one bow and done" kind of wrapper.

Hubby's family also has a tradition where you try to guess your present before you open. I do not like guessing games. And of course hubby would try to throw me off by putting rattling game pieces in a box along with the present. I doubt in the past 15 years I have guessed one present correctly. I tried to play along and make things hard for dh to guess. Like the year I put an actual brick in with the sweater I gave him. Wanna know what he guessed? A sweater with a brick in the box. Damn. Now if its shaped like a shirt box, feels like a shirt box, and maked a swishing sound like a shirt in a box, guess what it may be? You are right . . . a shirt! And considering that most of hubby's clothes come from Christmas or his birthday, that guess is right about 80% of the time.

Last year Santa decided to make life easy and wrapped all of Emma's presents in one type of paper and wrapped all of Leah's presents in a different type of paper. No tags needed, just a note that told the girls which presents were theirs. Now the dilemna--will Emma remember the paper from last year? I was going to throw that roll into the mix of paper I use to wrap from us. I decided against it, because chances are she will say, "Hey, Santa used that same paper last year!" I'm hoping that she hasn't seen the two rolls I have set aside for Santa this year.