As the Christmas season draws nearer and I'm sure we're all nervously nibbling our fingers thinking about Christmas presents, my thoughts go to present wrapping. I am a firm believer that the presentation is half the present, but the problem is that I cannot wrap a present to save my life.I've tried desperately to learn in the past. I've even volunteered at those charity Christmas wrapping station things in order to get lots and lots of practice. It didn't help, and I'm truly sorry to everyone who got a crappily wrapped present that year. I have no wrapping skills whatever - I guess they just skipped a generation.
As much as I believe that the presentation is half the present, I am well aware that my "beautiful" wrap job will eventually end up tore into a thousand pieces and discarded without a second thought. This bugs me. Why should I spend money on stuff that someone's going to rip up? Especially since wrapping is such a hopeless pain in the behind for me.
My alternative is to use gift bags. I love gift bags - it's a very simple process. Open bag. Shove item in bag. Shove piece of tissue paper in bag. Reward self with chocolate. I am absolutely delighted when I receive a present in a bag, because it means that I will be able to reuse the bag next year! Trust me, no one knows. Let's be honest now...do you remember what you received your Christmas present in last year?
After my baby shower, I saved all of my bags, and while most of them are obviously baby-orientated bags, I have still managed to reuse some of them in my other gifting needs throughout the year. Bags are also so much easier to store than a big roll of wrapping paper. Not to mention any type of item will fit into a bag - have you ever tried to wrap something that wasn't rectangular? You'd have better luck building a rocket out of paper-clips.
We are going home this Christmas, and I love that I won't have to worry about the wrapping paper being scratched up or torn while it's in my luggage. I'll just pack the items as-is, and then when I get there I'll spend 5 minutes putting the gift bags together. Gift bags definitely works for me!
2 comments:
They may not be as pretty as traditional gift bags, but I've been looking into reusable tote bags for gift giving. Even grocery store reusable bags, with a bit of tissue paper can look nice and the best part is they can then reuse them!
You could even decorate over the grocery store logo. The bags cost .99 around here.
I love that you are reusing the old bags!
I've always been a fan of gift bags because I wrap gifts horribly. Recently I have been using the cute reusable bags all the stores have been selling.
:)
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