I know – we haven’t even made it through Halloween and you don’t even have the brain power to think about Christmas yet. I’m not trying to add to the stress, but I thought I’d write a quick post on creative ways to do a little gift wrapping. Nothing necessarily new, time-saving, or mind-blowing here, just a few ideas to get you thinking – if indeed you are giving physical gifts this year.
When I was a kid, my favorite part of giving and receiving gifts was the wrapping. Ribbons, bows, strings, textured papers, unusual wrapping choices like newspaper, hand-drawn designs on paper, or little gifts wrapped in pretty handkerchiefs – it makes my heart sing thinking about it now. I always found so much joy in wrapping up a gift for someone in a creative, personalized, and sometimes over-the-top way, which made the wrapping feel like part of the gift itself.
Now, though, it feels like a huge effort just to walk to my closet, find a gift bag to repurpose, drop in the actual gift, and attempt to dress it up with a sheet of tissue paper. I’m not sure when this happened exactly – Oh wait….
Part of it was experiencing my first Christmas with pets. Bows would become cat toys; gifts would always end up ripped and tattered by indifferent cats. Curly ribbon soon became banned from the house and still is (yes, there is a story there), and that all robbed me (a little) of that joy of wrapping I had as a kid.
Then, when we had kids (and now a grandson living with us), it became a tradition to put all the presents under the tree on Christmas Eve. Any creative wrapping techniques I was excited about presenting looked like something from several Christmases past after being shuffled around from hiding place to hiding place in the lead-up to the big day. Why go to all the trouble of creating a beautiful gift presentation only to have them end up under the tree for only a few hours while looking like something the cat dragged in from a rummage sale? Years of this stole any small flicker of excitement about gift wrapping I had left. I can’t even walk past a gift wrap display without feeling a little stabby pain in my heart.
These days, I’m starting to rethink my gift wrap choices and came up with a few ideas I thought I’d share.
How about using a tote bag in place of a gift bag? There are many fun, funky, quirky totes available to match any personality type, and most everyone can use a tote bag throughout the year, even a festive, holiday-themed tote can be used over again for several years.
Wrapping a gift in a piece of material, Furoshiki style is one of my favorite wrapping choices.
Ideally, you’d want the wrapping cloth to be thin enough to nicely gather the corners together in a pretty knot on top of the gift. But anything would work, depending on the size of the gift and the type of fabric used. A tea towel might be cute for kitchen gadgets or a cookbook. A piece of fabric with a patterned theme to complement the gift in which it is wrapped is a nice touch.
How could I not mention the Christmas stocking? I mean, this is the best part of the whole gifting thing, isn’t it? If you’re feeling really motivated, you could sew a stocking together with really unique fabric and gift it to someone special and fill it with lots of fun things they might never buy for themselves. This is way more than I can take on, but hey, a girl can dream, right? Perhaps some holiday in the future, I just might dust off the sewing machine and whip up a few personalized stockings for our pets.
And, of course, there is the standard paper wrapping. You could take the theme and go with a tote filled with gifts wrapped in coordinating paper. I used to like to make bows or little sculptures from the wrapping paper to top off the wrapped gift.
Well, that is about the extent of my creative gift-wrapping ideas for now. How do you like that title? I used Chat GPT, because titles are the hardest part for me. After a few little tweaks of my own, I came up with this one. “Hack” was from Chat, and I thought it was perfect because isn’t everything a life hack these days? And that thought might be great fodder for a future post!
Happy Gifting.
Marie Friddle 