I must admit, I suck at wrapping gifts. I cut and fold gift wrappers unevenly. Most of the time I ask my mom to wrap
gifts for me; if not, I will just buy a gift bag and put my gift inside. Sometimes I would just avail of the free
gift-wrapping service of some department stores. Hey, anyway, it’s the thought that counts,
right?!
Gift-wrapping has been a family tradition. We buy gifts to our loved ones as a family,
and when we get home, we are all around the dining table, arranging all the gifts
to be wrapped. My father is the one who
writes the names of the receiver on the wrapper, my mom wraps the gifts, and my siblings and I are
cutting scotch tapes (we don’t have a tape dispenser then). My mom likes using themed Christmas wrappers
so the gifts underneath our Christmas tree look festive and colorful.
As I grow old, I got sick of seeing a lot of colors under
our Christmas tree. A friend of mine
gave me a gift and it was only wrapped in newspaper. Eureka! An idea struck me that not only predesigned
gift wrappers can be used to wrap gifts; basically, you can use just any kind of
paper! Since then, I’ve been challenged
to think of a gift wrapper theme yearly and not just buy predesigned Christmas
gift wrappers.
There was a year that I used red and green Japanese
papers. Since Japanese papers are too
thin, I have to wrap the gifts twice.
There was also a time that I only used red Japanese paper. I also bought a generic gift wrapper (with
white and gold stripes). Creativity
struck me once when I bought a roll of Kraft paper and my son and I decorated the
paper with anything! Instant
personalized gift wrapper! There was
also a time that I just bought brown paper bags and tags.
We used different techniques in decorating the wrappers, from finger painting, to brush painting, to stamping
Last year, I used Manila paper to wrap gifts. I cut
cardstocks to make it a gift tag. I tied
the gift tag with baker’s twine. I let
my son write on the gift tags since he cannot contribute that much on gift
wrapping. I haven’t thought of a theme for this year yet, but maybe, I will use magazine pages since we have lots of it at
home.
Kib writing on the gift tags
Indeed, gift wrapping can be both a family activity and a
mental challenge. It brings out your
creative juices especially if you want to have a themed Christmas and a
wonderful way of spending quality time with your family.
For this holiday season, how do you plan to wrap your gifts?
4 comments
My gosh we have a lot in common! I also suck in giftwrapping. Mama has to do it for me. When I was in college and away from my parents I had to ask my dormmates to wrap them for me. Ha ha! Then I found other ways to wrap them like newspapers, magazines, manila paper, japanese paper (my fave!), and sinamay. I have improved through the years but still cut and fold papers unevenly. :-) I haven't tried painting wrappers yet, that's a great idea-maybe I should try that, too :-)
ReplyDeleteYes, painting wrappers also add up to the personal touch that we want to our gifts, but you should really plan this waaaay ahead, hihi...you have to wait for the paint to dry first before using the wrappers =)
DeleteOne of our Christmas traditions as a family is to design our own gift wrapping paper and make our own Christmas cards with the kids.Nothing extraordinary - but it is a good bonding activity for the family. :) P.S. I don't mind receiving unevenly wrapped gifts. I'm not so good at it either, haha.
ReplyDeleteYes! Gift-wrapping is indeed a good bonding activity =)
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