i'm a terrible wrapper

Steven had to work late last night, so after I got home and took Millie for a walk, I poured a glass of wine, put on Christmas music and set out to wrap presents. I enjoy wrapping presents for about 30 minutes, after that not so much. My problem is that I am a terrible present wrapper. The fundamental issue is that after 30 minutes I don't take the time needed to correctly wrap a present. For example, it is widely known that you really should spend the time to make sure the piece of paper that you're going to use is the right size. I often err on the side of too much paper, and rather than trim the paper down to the size I need, I fold the paper and continue on. Some people can make this work, but I am not one of them. What happens is that when I get to the ends of the present I can't make the nice fold needed to seal it up. Inevitably, I end up with a lopsided fold and some of the underside of the paper showing. Having been this way forever, I do have some tricks to hide the underbelly, but it still sometimes looks a little funny. Last night was no exception.

Another challenge I have are odd-sized packages. One present I was wrapping had something sticking out of the front of the box, so three sides were smooth and the front was bulging. There really is no nice way to wrap a present like this. In the last few years I have become a big fan of gift bags, but you really need to be careful with these. You can overdo gift bags. The key is to mix the bags with wrapped presents for a cohesive look under the tree. Too many bags and it looks like a food drive under there. I usually go for a 30/70 mix of bags and presents. I can make a mean gift bag, so I leave those for the end. It's a good finish to my wrapping frenzy.

I wrapped the presents in order of where they were going: my stepmother (I had to also box them up and prepare them for shipping), my family in MA (ditto, shipped), and Steven's family (we're delivering these in person this weekend). I have to say it wasn't too bad this year. We have a lot of Christmas music (and a lot of wine!), and somehow I was able to get everything wrapped and in its respective packaging about 10 minutes before Steven arrived home from work. After that we ate dinner and watched Mary Poppins. I had never seen it and it was really cute! It wasn't so cute when it came on again immediately afterwards, but whatever. A spoonful of sugar makes the presents get wrapped.