Wrap It or Bag It

I just finished wrapping and mailing a gift for my sister's birthday next week. I'm old fashioned. I like to wrap packages with real wrapping paper and tie them with ribbon to match. It's a challenge to find a box to fit whatever I'm giving. That's why I save all sorts of odd-sized boxes.

The paper must befit the recipient. For sister Mary I chose one printed with pansies, because they were the first flowers our parents planted in the yard of their new house in the late 193o's, and their first year's proliferation was the subject of many family tales and pictures.

In the "olden days" thrifty folk saved wrapping paper and ribbon to use again. Nowadays it's just torn off and tossed. How sad.

I still find it heretical to put a gift in a bag with only tissue paper around it. That's just too easy. Of course bags are re-usable--more so than wrapping paper. That's why I keep all of them I've gotten gifts in to use later. At gift-giving time, however, I choose wrapping paper, unless something is odd-sized or I have a bag design perfectly matched to the recipient. Stick-on bows are great for multiple Christmas gifts (all of my packages have to have bows on them), but tying a box in ribbon shows that you care enough about the giftee to spend the extra time and effort it requires.

By the way--thank you, Shamrock Corporation, for continuing to print great wrapping paper. Keep on "rolling" along!