Ribbons and bows or bags and tags

I’m sitting here looking at all of the wrapped gifts under my beautiful tree.  My daughter was wrapping last night and complained about how many she had to do.  I said, “Use bags”.  But, she prefers having to actually rip open the paper and work a little for what’s inside, so she assumes others do as well.  I think I agree with her on that one.  The pros to using the bag are of course, convenience and they are easier to recycle.  They are also very cute and sport flashy graphics and tags.  However, some people consider the use of bags the “lazy” way and if you don’t tape them up well, they are super easy to peek into if you are prone to that sneaky habit.

I am not ashamed, (although maybe I should be) to say that as a child I always snooped and it was very time consuming as well as cumbersome having to actually unwrap and re-wrap.  Unfortunately, no one used bags back then; they were all wrapped. I had to be not only swift, but good at it too; those gifts had to look just as pretty when I was finished with them.   I considered myself very fortunate the day I discovered my mother’s “list of gifts by child”, the mother lode, in her beside dresser drawer.  It’s probably no surprise that this was forbidden territory as well.

My kids always liked to be surprised (as far as I know anyway) as did my brother and sister back in the day.  I’ve changed as well.  I’m not even tempted to peek or try to discover what’s under the tree for me anymore.  I’m not sure why it was so important back then for me to know what was there; maybe it was the attention I got; or maybe I was just a devious little sneak.  Who knows? Now that I understand, honor and appreciate the true meaning of Christmas so much more, it just wouldn’t seem right to deprive someone of the joy over my surprise at their choice of gift for me.

Happy wrapping or bagging or whatever your preference!  I’ll be doing some of both.