Writing Myself Out

No, no, I’m not caught up — I’m just finished with another entry for the journal, this time in response to the Dec. 10 prompt, about wrapping paper, and I’m feeling relieved that I can post it, after dealing with some weird technical glitch that was sending me to another site when I tried to access my blog. It seemed appropriate to write this entry tonight, after we’ve been working today on getting some of our gifts wrapped in order to mail them tomorrow to my brother and his family in British Columbia — perhaps I will shuffle the pages in the journal around to put this entry alongside today’s “daily notes”. Anyhow, here are my thoughts on wrapping paper:

Every year at the start of the Christmas season, I have visions of what my wrapped gifts will look like.

Sometimes I dream of beautifully packages, resplendent with real fabric ribbon and done up in gorgeous reds, or gold and silver (an ideal planted in my head by an article that appeared in the Dec. 1982 issue of Canadian Living – our copy was very dog-eared thanks to my many re-readings), and lovely gift tags handmade with my stash of craft supplies, like the ones featured in all the scrapbooking magazines and blogs.

Sometimes I imagine wonderfully quirky packages, reminiscent of some of the gifts we made when I was a child, which were wrapped with old architectural blueprints from my dad’s office, or with paper decorated by carving Christmasy shapes into cut potatoes, and then coating them in paint for stamping. The gifts would then be adorned with tags crafted by my brother and me out of images cut from old Christmas cards.

But every year, either practicality or a lack of time prevails, and we come back to the same box of wrapping paper, with rolls decorated with Santa Claus or snowman designs, and the pre-made tags, paper ribbon and clear “gift wrap” tape.

Bryan wraps (his logical mind and careful nature being perfect for the task), and I write book inscriptions, match gifts that should be wrapped together, do the “decorating” with ribbon (using my mom’s scissor trick to curl the ends) and other doodads, and write the tags. I enjoy giving little hints with my tag messages, and let the gift recipient know that while the paper and ribbon may be generic, the gift is given with intention and love.