Ribbon, Boxes, and Tape

Christmas is only a few days away and for a change I am ready, relaxed, enjoying the music of the season, and everything the Hallmark channel serves up. It was touch and go for a bit, but not for the reasons you might think.

The post office is the dreaded destination of December. Can you get Christmas stamps? How long are the lines? Will my package get to its destination in time? All good questions, but there is a step in there that has to take place before you can venture so far as the post office. That’s right! It’s not the shipping. It’s the wrapping of gifts!

I discovered this December that I am the world’s slowest gift wrapper! What the heck takes me so long? I’ll admit I’m a little methodical. I love those lines on the back of the wrapping paper that guide you so you make a straight cut, and don’t end up with a piece of paper that makes it look like you’ve been drinking since breakfast! I have no idea how we managed to wrap gifts before the turn of the century without such guidance.

I have the tape and the scissors close at hand. The gift tags and marker are within reach. I’ve cleared the table of everything, so that there are no impediments to my progress and yet an hour has passed and I have successfully wrapped three presents. What!? That can’t be! I turn the Christmas music up a bit louder. Maybe that will encourage me to pick up the speed.

It’s not helping that the tape instantly wraps around my fingers like a chimpanzee with a death grip on a banana. What is the deal with that? While I’m wrestling with the tape the clock is ticking, and my painstakingly exact paper creases are wandering from their precise locations, requiring me to get them course corrected before attempting to tear another strip of tape and secure it to the gift before it tapes two of my fingers together. If I were an elf in Santa’s workshop I’d be in serious jeopardy of being fired! He’s on a schedule you know. Well, he’s not the only one!

I have a fair number of gifts to wrap, and though time is of the essence it hasn’t dwindled down to critical….yet! My favorite ones are those that come in a nice square box. They make for easy wrapping. You’ll notice I said “easy”, not “fast”. Somehow fast eludes me, no matter what shape the package is. The dreaded ones are those that are round, or odd shaped that fit in no box you happen to have on hand leaving me to wing it. Winging it usually results in a present that looks slightly south of appealing. To make up for it I add a few bows. Bows make everything more festive, even a package that looks like I wrapped the cat!

Every day for three days I tell my friend Martha, “I’m wrapping presents today.” She can’t believe I am still at it, and thinks my packages must look beautiful. Like something out of Martha Stewart’s Christmas magazine. She’d be wrong, but who am I to say anything different. “Of course they do!”

Whatever the gifts look like under your tree; whether tied in pretty ribbon, or what might be mistaken for the family cat; whether there are many or few, know that the greatest gift of all lies beneath the pretty paper and the bows. It is love. Merry Christmas and God bless you all.