As a kid, the author’s wrapping skills were notoriously horrible, especially compared with his three sisters’.
Illustration by Ward Saunders
It was holiday time again. Back from shopping, my sisters raced to their rooms. The sound of hushed whispers mixed with the crinkling of bags stashed hurriedly into closets. Christmas presents. The only thing they enjoyed more than shopping for them was wrapping them.
Mama taught them well. Before Christmas she cleared a table and lined up with military precision her wrapping paper, tape, scissors and ribbon. Unrolling a length of paper, Mama’s keen eye determined the amount needed for perfect coverage. Her scissors sliced a cut so exact any surgeon would be jealous.
Folds and seams were flawless. The tape was snipped neatly and applied invisibly. Mama was meticulous even to the bow, another step made magically simple. Using several strips of ribbon, she gripped each between her thumb and a blade of the scissors then jerked her hand down each of their lengths. Voila! A festive cluster created by some mysterious feat of wizardry. The perfect bow of curls.
For years Mama repeated her fascinating exactness and my sisters learned well. Our tree was surrounded by magnificently concealed holiday surprises but I sometimes wondered why they bothered. With paper so tightly formed around each it was no mystery what was inside. A book looked like a book. A box was likely a shirt. My new Frisbee was clearly just that. What happened to shaking gifts and guessing contents? That was half the fun!
But, their wrapping efforts were works of art. My sisters took pride in their skills and enjoyed the process.
I did not.
My uneven folds and botched tape jobs were the brunt of their jokes. Not that I didn’t care about the giftwrap, but wasn’t all of this going in the trash? My sisters encouraged me though I knew mine would never look like theirs.
They giggled. “Keep trying, you’ll get there.”
I tried to imitate Mama’s keen eye yet ended up with enough paper to wrap any one gift two and a half times. My scissors didn’t glide through the paper, so I was left with torn and jagged edges. Folding ragged bits to hide my blunders only resulted in lumps, wrinkles and ridges. It was bad.
My tape job was worse.
Instead of tidy strips I ripped foot-long pieces knowing it would take that much to rein in my mistakes. Once under control, each of my gifts was ready for a bow. Gripping the scissors, I tried to imitate Mama’s maneuver. During one noble attempt I yanked back hard, the ribbon snapped, and I stabbed my bedroom door. The gash is still visible today.
With wrapping eventually finished, my pitiful packages were made fun of instantly. “Did you put a bow on a ball of trash?” “Wait, that is a bow, right?” I heard it all. I could never achieve the beauty crafted by my sisters.
They giggled again. “Keep trying. You’ll get there.”
As they wrapped theirs, they chuckled about mine. Enough was enough. If my gifts brought that much Christmas joy before being opened, then I knew just what to do.
I taped wadded scraps of paper to each gift, forming odd-shaped masses, which I then wrapped in paper ripped from the roll. Who needed scissors? Pulling a length of tape from the dispenser, I wound it entirely around what became a wrinkled blob. No worrying with folds or seams. My gifts looked like mummies ready for bows.
I decided to forego the bows.
Finally finished, I hauled the gifts to the tree and stood beside the gleaming giftwrapping of the others aligned there in symmetrical perfection. I dumped my pile of Yuletide rubble.
There, let them make fun.
One sister approached the Christmas tree and stared at my heap of colorful debris. As she reached down and grabbed one of the holiday blobs, she called to the others. I waited for their good-hearted ribbing.
“What are these?” she asked as she handed each of them a wrinkled mass.
Eyes widened. “Shake it!” “Shake this one!” “What could it be?” they squealed with excitement as they poked and prodded.
For days they investigated my oddball gifts. They pondered, guessed and took visiting cousins to the living room to show off the crazy presents. They found humor, not in my mistakes, but in my new style of wrapping. By Christmas Eve they admitted what fun it had already been.
My fancy designs had caused quite the stir.
“How did you decide the shapes?” “How did you make them lumpy?” They agreed the next year instead of forming smooth and perfectly wrapped gifts topped with beautiful bows they would attempt my oddly unique method.
“We’ve wrapped ours the same way for so long. Not sure we could pull this off!” they said.
I giggled. “Keep trying. You’ll get there.”
This article originally appeared in our December 2017 issue.
