Wrapping presents

I have been wrapping presents for the last few days. I think I may be 1/16th of the way through now. For me, wrapping presents rates right up there with mucking out the pig pen and clipping my children's fingernails, so I put it off until the last minute. Of course it would be hard not to put it off to the last minute since I don't shop until the last minute either.

But now the shopping is done and it is time to wrap the presents. My kids don't seem too worried about the lack of presents under the tree--they are more concerned with what they are going to BE this year. BE? Several years ago I noticed that the big kids were guessing what was in the presents with their names on them. They seem to have inherited my husbands ability to guess presents. So...instead of putting their names on the packages, I assigned everyone a fake name in order to throw them off the trail. Now instead of trying to guess what is in the package they are trying to guess who they are. I would appreciate some comments about how clever I am, thank you.

This year I am going a little different route and using gift tags. Everyone has a different picture. I set some presents out this morning and it took my 13 year old daughter all of about 5 seconds to figure it out. At least she doesn't know which one she is.



I have a billion presents to wrap. Really. One husband and eight kids times 6-7 presents each, plus other family members, plus the stockings equals a billion. Do the math: (1+8)7+OFM+S(9)=1,000,000,000

So I will be wrapping presents until my fingers bleed. Usually by Christmas Eve my husband takes pity on me and helps me do the stockings. This was actually another really clever trick of mine (no one tell). A few years ago I didn't wrap the stocking stuff and then on Christmas Eve at about 10pm I whined, "But I still have to do the sto-ckings." So he helped me. I did it again last year, and by now it is a tradition, so he has to help me. I am so smart.

As if a billion presents isn't bad enough, I have some from my mom that got sent directly here that I have to wrap. I am in present wrapping HELL.

*That's okay, Mom, there were only 5 and I don't mind, really, I am just trying to get some sympathy, that's all.

I have a friend that found out that her girls went in her bedroom while she was at work and peeked at their presents (not wrapped yet). She doesn't know for sure what they saw, but she told me she is going to just put all the presents in a box (still unwrapped) and give them to her kids that way. Just toss them on the floor in front of the tree after they have opened the wrapped presents Christmas morning. "Let them sort it out." she said. After being semi horrified at the thought of those poor girls having such a "memorable" Christmas, I was instantly jealous that my friend didn't have to wrap any more presents. I really, really hope she gets over her mad and doesn't do that to her family.

Press on, press on I say. Piles of paper and tape and boxes galore. And the time. The time it takes to wrap all of these presents. But in the end it is worth it to see how pretty it all looks under the tree, and how happy it makes my family. They know the reason we celebrate Christmas, because we talk about it all the time. But they also like presents, so I will keep wrapping. I don't mind.

They are worth it.