RQOTD - Christmas Wrapping

[Libby Pritchett]

Love it or hate it?

Are you the type that goes all out with matching paper and ribbons and bows? Are your gifts works of art? Are you the gift bag type? Or do you fall somewhere in between?

I HATE wrapping gifts. Hate hate hate. I'm not good at it, and I just don't enjoy it. If it were up to me, everyone would get gift bags.

Jeff, on the other hand, hates it as much as I do but firmly believes that half the joy of Christmas is tearing into the paper. So, we have to wrap EVERY SINGLE THING individually (including stocking stuffers... before Jeff, stuff just got thrown unwrapped into the stocking).

When Kendra was little Santa didn't wrap presents cause my ex-husband grew up that way, and that was A-OK with me. LOL She had wrapped presents from mom & dad, but Santa's gifts were sitting out Christmas morning. Jeff will have no part of that nonsense though, so now everything has to be wrapped.

How about you?

[adi&co.]

I loooooooooooooooooooooooooove wrapping gifts. Seriously love it. My mom use to have me wrap all the presents (except mine of course) every year because I loved doing it so much, lol! we don't wrap stocking stuffers though. those just go unwrapped in the stocking. Santa wraps all the gifts in a different paper than the rest and it has to have santa on it, that's just what my parents did and since i'm the one doing all the wrapping, Sabe just goes with it

[Darcy Baldwin]

We've moved to reusable gift bags for many of the things we put out. And Amazon boxes

[KristinCB]

Santa doesn't wrap the gifts here - kids get a gift/stocking from santa. The rest of the presents are wrapped and i'm not picky at all. I'm a horrible wrapper and i just do the best I can.. usually very quickly. haha

[SmallMoments]

Yes, they have to be wrapped!! No gift bags! LOL That said, I don't make them pretty. Just wrapped and if I really like them I'll add a bow.

[Lyd]

I also think that *most* presents should be wrapped. That IS half the fun of Christmas. But, I also HATE HATE HATE wrapping. Unfortunately, it's a necessary evil at Christmas. I don't wrap stocking stuffers, but everything else . . . yes.

My MIL and SIL love wrapping and always do gorgeous, intricate bows. I have one nephew who used to freak out every time he unwrapped one of their gifts because it was so hard to get the bow undone, and he couldn't just get to the gift. Lol. So, they've kind of toned it down in the last few years. Haha.

[crecia27]

I love to wrap presents, or rather I love how they look under the tree. I dislike gift bags under the tree for sure! I've never wrapped stocking stuffers - but my kids are getting less number of gifts this year and I'm with Jeff - 1/2 the fun is the unwrapping so I think I'll wrap them this year!

[NeverendingJen]

I love wrapping. LOVE IT. I buy coordinating wrapping and tags and bows to fit my color scheme every year. I'm kind of obsessive about it. I can't wait for all the chrsitmas gifts to arrive and spend a day by the tree wrapping while listening to christmas music.

[Julie Billingsley]

Originally Posted by Libby Pritchett

If it were up to me, everyone would get gift bags.

Jeff, on the other hand, hates it as much as I do but firmly believes that half the joy of Christmas is tearing into the paper. So, we have to wrap EVERY SINGLE THING individually (including stocking stuffers... before Jeff, stuff just got thrown unwrapped into the stocking).

oh my gosh, we are the same way! I am really good at wrapping gifts, use to do it for a job I had back when I was a teenager. But, I'm all about the gift bags now. But my husband is firmly against that and wants everything wrapped. I think I might win this year though and just do gift bags. No time for hours of wrapping!

[julifish]

I enjoy wrapping gifts. I purchase matching paper after Christmas each year for the next year and the colors are my theme for the next year too (decorations for the house). This year it's Black, White, Red, and Lime Green with silver accents.

I put stick on bows on some gifts, but we have to take gifts to my parents on Christmas day so the bows get smooshed. For my in-laws I make bows out of ribbon. My MIL loves to buy expensive paper and nice ribbon and wraps things beautifully (my SIL does this too). So I do my best to make sure at least one of their gifts look nice. LOL - I don't know why I care.

When my kids believed in Santa I bought separate Santa paper and wrapped their gifts from Santa in that paper and put them on the fireplace hearth. I often would share wrapping paper with a co-worker for Santa gifts. Target always had some that said From Santa on It or pictures of Santa. This year I picked up a big gift bag for each of them that matches their personalities and likes and will put their big gift in there and mark it from Santa.

I also wrap all the stocking stuffers for the most part. Larger items don't get wrapped.

[clearskies]

I enjoy wrapping, but I gave up on the fancy bows....they didn't travel well...

This year I bought gold and silver paper in an effort to tone down the 'crazy'...

Stocking stuff and Santa presents are not wrapped though. Generally Santa assembles his stuff in advance so it's ready for playing first thing...

[luckyme]

Originally Posted by Libby Pritchett

I HATE wrapping gifts. Hate hate hate. I'm not good at it, and I just don't enjoy it. If it were up to me, everyone would get gift bags.

This is SO me! I wrap gifts for the kiddos because they're little and unwrapping is half the fun for them, but the moment they're old enough, I'm switching to gift bags!!!

[glumirk]

I love wrapping. I used to wrap most of my family's presents (except for mine) including my parents to each other.

However, I'm too cheap to spend the money on really nice paper and bows and coordinating things. It's just going to get thrown away, so why bother?

But I do love wrapping. I find it soothing and it is a rest for my OCD tendencies because you can fold all of those crooked cuts away and make it beautiful.

Santa gifts aren't wrapped. Neither DH or I grew up with that. Santa presents were there to keep us satisfied until the parents were ready to get up. Our kids are young so we get up anyway, but it's nice to have something before and after breakfast, and an incentive to have more than candy for breakfast.

[mariewilcox]

I don't love it, don't hate it. I don't mind wrapping because I wrap as I buy and never have a ton to do at one time. I agree with the NO gift bag sentiment - Cheyanne still gets upset if she has mostly gift bags for Christmas or birthdays because the fun is unwrapping things, not opening a bag and pulling something out. I wrap stocking stuffers but I only have 1 stocking to wrap - LOL.

No bows because our cats eat them and then throw them up all over the house Years ago when I had no pets I would make my own bows out of the wider ribbons on a spool - my mom taught me when I was a kid.

[scrapsuzy]

I love to wrap, and I like wrapping EVERYTHING. I don't care about papers matching, but I do arrange them under the tree so that the same paper isn't next to itself. I don't do ribbons and bows because we have a cat that eats them. Plus, so much is stacked under the tree that bows would end up getting smooshed.

One year I had a wrapping party with a few girlfriends. Christmas music, wine, and wrapping gifts all together made it much more fun. One of us hated to wrap, and even she had fun (she also didn't wrap much, but kept us supplied with wine and made sure all the gifts were properly tagged.)

[catgoddess]

I love wrapping gifts and do the whole ribbon and bow thing. I'm a paper snob and only use the thick wrapping paper from Hallmark. I use the thick, wide ribbon for pet households and make bows from that. I use the thin, curly ribbon if pets aren't a concern. I like fun tags that coordinate, but not match the paper. I prefer fun wrapping paper with snowmen. I did find some super cute winter owl paper this year, too, and we bought some Snoopy paper that Wes liked.

[nun69]

I hate hate hate wrapping and Jeff sound sexactly like Matt LOL! I grew up with all of our Santa gifts UNWRAPPED and under the tre eon Christmas morning...he grew up with EVERYTHING wrappes (except for stocking stuffers)...but I did incorporate filling stocking to the brim and adding lots of goodies as this was always my favrotie part of Christmas! My kids stockings are soooo stuffed that they can NEVER get all the stuff back in them after they dump them out!!!!

[breakingbrie]

I LOOOOOOVE wrapping! lol, I usually end up with about 9 different kinds, so I don't coordinate or anything, but I totally love it. I buy new every year as well, so I give away what ever is left over. I always loved wrapping for friends and fam who didn't like it. One year at work at a car parts store, all the guys brought in their stuff for me to wrap one day. Easy money.

[Keely~B]

I am an awesome gift wrapper . My mom used to give me a pile of boxes and say, "don't look at these" and I'd wrap away. She still tries to pawn her wrapping off on me! I do get a bit burnt out on quantity and I don't love to do a bunch at the last minute but mostly I LOVE it. I think it's so fun to make things look pretty, and I love to get creative with it ( I use all sorts of stuff ). I don't really match everything because I like variety. I do use some bags but I prefer a wrapped and decorated box and make sure there's a heavy showing of those.

[eranslow]

Not my favorite thing to do! But today while shopping at Target I picked up some kraft wrapping papering. So I am looking forward to decorating that - gotta look on Pinterest for ideas

[flergs]

I buy a massive roll and use it until it's gone, I'm on year 3 of the same roll o.O No fanciness here. Santa stuff is unwrapped in a sack so that's easy enough.

[rach3975]

You're all making me feel very guilty! We're a gift bag house (and reuse them) because I'm never on the ball enough to get it all done ahead of time. I always plan to sneak down to the basement and wrap that night's Hanukkah gifts before I give them to the kids, but of course I get busy or DH gets home later than expected, and then it doesn't happen. Maybe next year!

I'm totally cheap about wrapping. My kids are going to tear into it and barely even notice the wrapping, so I don't waste time or money on fancy wrappings. Maybe if we had a tree and the presents were going to sit under it, but with Hanukkah I bring it up from the basement, we light the menorah, and I hand them their gifts. It takes about 5 minutes total.

[pewtertm]

I love wrapping gifts! I don't do fancy...rarely will you find a bow on any gifts at our house because I have a cat that loves to eat them (and then vomits them up all over the house).
I hate gift bags...I used to use them a lot but it's just not as much fun, and I also got sick of having a huge horde of them. Now if we get a gift in a bag, we try and use it on gifts that we are giving to people who don't live in our house

[Jengerbread88]

I loved wrapping gifts most of my life, and always went all-out with matching paper, ribbons,bows, etc. Until we got a foreign exchange student from Germany who was SUUUUPER OCD about wrapping, and would constantly correct me on the "right" way to wrap.

I use gift bags now. :P

(P.S. She is the sweetest girl ever, but she's from East Germany and can just be blunt sometimes, really saying what she thinks with no filter. After letting her wrap the presents for a year, I seemed to have lost my knack for it!)

[Tronesia]

I am a decent wrapper.. I think. My mom used to make me wrap all of our stuff after she boxed it up. It drove me crazy. I only wrap gifts from us and Santa's gifts are unwrapped. I am not really picky about paper and bows and everything because it all just gets ripped and thrown away. As long as it has reindeer or snowmen my daughter loves to look at the paper on the gifts put under the tree early.

[tanyiadeskins]

omg I am such a scrooge this year! I have always loved wrapping presents and loved making them pretty... this year it is as many bags as possible Idk what is wrong with me.

[lovely1m]

I hate wrapping. I buy cheap wrap and gift tags only. I get sick of doing it and just start smashing paper down and taping it. It looks awful. We only wrap the big santa gift, nothing else from Santa.

[littlekiwi]

I'll give a donation to get gifts wrapped most of the time except this year all bar one were done before I saw any gift wrappers at the shopping centre so I guess I will be doing most of mine this time

[fifilur]

I totallt LOVE wrapping! I usually come up with one or two coordinatin designs each year and make them really pretty with bow and tag. No expensive supplies but still really pretty.

[MamaBee]

I hate it... I wrap based on family... my husband's family will get one paper roll (since we open them when they come on Christmas Day)... my parents a different one (we open those on Christmas Eve)... and then a third for us... afternoon on Christmas Day an Santa's gift. I'm digging the not wrapping Santa's gift... then wont' have to deal with the question someday, why is the paper the same? haha...

I used to LOVE gift bags and get them cheap after Christmas Sales for the following years... until my STEP-mother-in-law DEMANDED everyone give her their gift bags so that SHE could reuse them herself...going so far as emptying other peoples bags - going through my closet for t-shirt bags... so she could get the gift bag. So, now out a spite I don't give her my bags and I wrap her gifts... hahah *have I mentioned I'm passive aggressive?*

[Darcy Baldwin]

HAHA Rebecca - then one year her gift should be some fabric gift bags That's what we use. I got a bunch of clearance fabric and sewed a bunch of gift bags in different sizes that we reuse on about 80% of our presents. I hate the idea of wasting paper for nothing like that (it's one of my quirks..it's one of the reasons I loved digital scrapping so much when I switched - no paper waste).

[Keely~B]

My DH is famous for giving gifts in pillow cases LOL

[LeeAndra]

I don't wrap anything until Christmas Eve and we don't usually have a ton of presents to wrap, so I don't mind. I'm not great at it, but the kids don't even look at the paper as they're ripping into it. I usually buy three kinds: one for each kid (so I don't have to gift tag them after spending an hour or so doing all the wrapping!) and then a third for all the other presents that will be opened at the ILs' and my parents' house. I don't wrap stocking things, and DD's one Santa present doesn't get wrapped, either.

I'm not one of those people who has a fancy color-coordinated designer tree, either, though. My tree is homey and filled with sentimental ornaments from my childhood and the kids' lives thus far, so I don't attempt to match the presents to each other or to the tree.