Susan Writes

Bags, bags, and more bags.  Blue ones with glittery snowflakes. Some with Christmas trees and Santa Claus. Some with angels. I will never use all the gift bags that have accumulated in my Christmas wrapping box. Do they multiply like wire coat hangers?

I told my oldest Grand, age 11, that everyone was getting gifts in bags this year because it’s easier and I have a plethora of bags. He dropped his shoulders and glared that pre-teenage stare. “Really, Gran? Last year you put our gifts in one bag. I didn’t like that. I like separate wrapped gifts.” I’d copied an idea to have a big bag for each of our eight Grands. Inside were two or three wrapped gifts, without ribbons or bows, wrapped loosely in tissue paper.

I plastered my biggest encouraging grin. “David, I know, but I’ve already got eight big bags and I can put smaller bags inside the big ones.”

“Can you just wrap mine? In a box? With ribbon? Probably nobody else cares.” And, really, I’m with David. A traditionalist that likes boxed, wrapped gifts with ribbon and bows.

Remember when Christmas gifts were wrapped in shiny red or green paper and plaid ribbon crisscrossed the package and tied into a big bow? When red and white striped paper was tied with green ribbon? When gold metallic paper and gold ribbon were for very special gifts? Someone would say, “That’s too pretty to open.”

And remember when packages were decorated? Mom saved every wax paper and toilet paper cardboard roll for Christmas wrapping. To make decorative candles, we covered rolls with red paper and cut gold colored flames and then taped candles and flames green packages.

I worked to make Dad’s present look like a shirt. After wrapping the box in solid colored paper, I cut and taped bright red or green paper to be a shirt with a collar. If we didn’t have paper that looked like a tie, I’d draw and color a striped one.

Construction paper worked best to create snow scenes on the front of a package. Green triangle trees with red ribbon roping and white three-circle snowmen. And aluminum foil held its shape to make 3-D bells and was perfect for five-pointed stars.

Some decorated packages were hazardous. Mom saved cut-off tops of tin cans. I glued small pictures from old Christmas cards in the middle of the tin circle and outlined the pictures with glitter. Multi-colored was my favorite. Using Mom’s heavy wire cutting scissors, I cut slits from the edge almost to the center of the tin and carefully bent the edges. I tied these tin wreaths to a bow on packages and some wreaths decorated our Christmas tree.

So this Christmas, I’ll give most gifts in store-bought, mostly recycled, decorative bags. But there will be a few wrapped packages under my tree. Shiny red paper with plaid ribbon. David will know which gifts are his.

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Filed under: Christmas | Tagged: bags, Christmas gifts, wrapped |