Yesterday was official present wrapping day over here. I had been collecting boxes and bags in my office, concealed under a giant sheet. I also had a chart going of who was getting what — both from me and what I suspected Santa might bring. With 5 children there is a fair amount of organizational work involved in all this. I’m happy to report that everyone is getting 6-7 wrapped presents under the tree, and Santa has dutifully informed me (via his elf messengers) that people’s stockings will look visually cool and roughly equal, at least for the younger crew.
(My husband also has 6 wrapped presents from me. I have no idea how many wrapped presents I have — he tends not to shop for me with the equity number in mind, so it really could be anything.)
Yesterday I pulled everything out of the boxes and bags and stacked it up by person. We are only missing one gift from the core under-the-tree presents, so that is good! Then my trusty assistant (house manager) and I chose wrapping paper for each person. Yes, everyone gets their own wrapping paper. This is made easier by the giant rolls of Costco wrapping paper, which are double-sided. We also still have some half rolls from prior years. One person (14-year-old) had selected her wrapping paper ahead of time; everyone else was assigned a color.
Then we got to work wrapping everything — re-using gift tags and bows from prior years in most cases. It took a lot of work but my office is now much more spacious with most things under the tree!
I then got the 16-year-old and the 14-year-old to wrap their sibling gifts (yes, we’re doing this again). The 10-year-old and 5-year-old had already wrapped theirs. I got the 18-year-old to order his so those will come this weekend but that will work.
Then, later in the day, I wrapped my presents for my extended family. This is almost completely done so now I am feeling a lot more relaxed about the holidays.
I’m mostly happy with what I’ve gotten people and I think they will be happy too. I hope so! But hey, at least the wrapping paper looks pretty.
I am jealous you are so far into this task. I think I will be treating my kids to lunch and a movie to get them out of the house for several hours on Saturday so Santa’s elves can get to work.
@Gillian – I should use a Saturday instead of a workday, but the temptation of having people out of the house was too high!
Wrapping is so much work, but it is definitely part of the magic of Christmas!
I start by using wrapping paper (no real coordination of pattern), but by the end I’m putting things in tins and bags. It all seems to work out. My patience for wrapping is much higher when I start, so there’s a healthy mix of paper wrapping and then my lazier solution. At this point, I’ve accumulated various festive tins and bags which are perfect for odd-shaped things and get reused year after year.
I used to put EVERYTHING in boxes so everything got wrapped, but life feels a bit too short for that now 😉
@Elisabeth – I didn’t have too much oddly shaped this year – so only two things wound up in bags. Which is good since I don’t have a whole lot of cute bags!
My husband also will not commit to a present count under the tree so we can match…drives me crazy!! Kids each get 4 gifts from Santa and 2 from us this year (and probably 1 from each other), he’ll also get 6 from me.
@Sarah – I assume it will be somewhere in the vicinity of everyone else but…we shall see!