Wrap Star

My holiday gifts do not look like this. Trust me. I am an awful package wrapper. It seems that no matter what I do, the critical points end up mushed and scrunched and generally untidy.

Some years ago, I was in the middle of a particularly crazy Christmas season due to family medical issues. My wife was due home from a lengthy hospital stay right before December 25 and I thought it would be nice for a lot of pretty presents to be under the tree when she arrived. I took all my gifts to a gift shop and I hired one of the ladies to wrap them for me. They were gorgeous. Almost too pretty to open at all.

Another year, I had a wonderful assistant who, in a prior life, had worked in a department store service center. A true wrap star. Sensing that I was a lost cause in the creative arts department, she actually asked me if I had packages that I would like wrapped. They were even prettier than the ones I got from the gift shop.

Those were my only experiences with really well wrapped gifts. I gave up on them because I discovered an odd thing. Although I got the usual joy from giving gifts to people I love, I did not get as much joy as when I wrapped them myself. No matter how visually inadequate the end result may have been. I found that it was the investment of myself in the act of giving that made all the difference. That investment was my feeble effort at wrapping the packages.

Gifts do not make the holiday. But if you do give gifts, put on a little holiday music, pour a nice neat cognac, and do the best you can with the decoration. You will feel all the closer to the recipients because you will be giving them a bit of yourself, of your affection. The sort of giving that we are supposed to be about. During the holiday season. And throughout the year.