Monday Teeny Poll
By Glinda
Last week I asked about holiday shopping, and it seems you don’t care how you get your gifts, as long as you get the best price. I’m totally with ya, sisters. Although I will admit to there being a bit of a preference toward web ordering, simply because it seems there is more variety, as well as more hand-made items, on teh nets.
This week I want to know about wrapping. Or, uh, not wrapping, as it were.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
A friend told me about a tradition in his family and I co-opted it. Last year for Christmas, I made reusable fabric bags of varying sizes and patterns, and gave them to everyone on my list. These people will then use them to exchange with each other and the bags will be reused and reused and reused, thus saving trees and creating a hand made item that was made with love. I just forgot to make any for myself! I’m going to go when the sales start after Christmas and pick up some more Christmas fabric and make some of my own!
December 15th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I always start out with wonderful visions of creatively wrapped and color coordinated gifts. So I start wrapping. Then reality hits and I end up sticking everything in a bag and stuffing in tissue. So it ends up to be about 50/50.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I wrap boxes ect but put other trickier items into bags.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Store-bought gift bags just say “I care enough to spend money, not time on you.” Which may be true, but isn’t what people want to hear. I may not get the bows and tags on there, but by gum it’ll be wrapped. Frankly, I take a fair bit of pride in having presents I’ve wrapped gather compliments when they’re sitting under people’s trees. Because I want to give something not just suitable on the inside but beautiful on the outside, and with enough effort, I can.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I’ll use the gift bags if an item is so awkwardly shaped that wrapping it would wind up looking like a dog’s breakfast.
Mind you, I did once give my mom’s gift a gift bag just because the bag itself was so freaking pretty. It was black-and-white damask print, nice glossy paper flocked with velvet, with pink grosgrain ribbon handles. She actually kept the bag and uses it to store towels in her guest bathroom.
So yeah, unless the gift bag itself is part of the gift due to its quality and beauty, or unless I bought something that’s shaped really oddly, I’ll definitely wrap the gift.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
My mother and I are now rather notorious within our family for our beautifully wrapped presents, so we have an image to maintain! She took a bow-making class at the container store one year, and we’ve never looked back! It’s now become one of our mother-daughter holiday traditions.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
nak
I love both wrapping presents and unwrapping them. I don’t mind gift bags, but I think part of the joy of gift giving is ripping the paper.
I do reuse bags, though, and sometimes paper as well.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Gift bags for annoyingly shaped things, wrapping paper for everything else.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I’m with Meg, La Petite Acadienne, and Awesome Mom–sometimes it can be wrapped with style, sometimes you just gotta bag it.
Although as Christmas Eve winds to a close, I will use whatever is left that will contain it. Last year, with a stack of gift cards (gift of preference for some), I loosely balled each one in tissue, popped the ball in a cellophane bag, & tied it with a bright swatch of ribbon. They looked intriguing under the tree, and no one could imagine what they were–until the first one was opened.