I guess I have reached the age where I really don’t need anything, so wandering from store to store looking for gifts is less than thrilling. I used to love looking at all the ads in the newspaper and now whenever I look at the newspaper its physically diminutive size distracts me from the pleasure of the Christmas ads. That little type in newspapers is ALREADY too small – why do they continue shrinking the newspapers?
Wrapping gifts also used to be a real treat for me. I would spend hours trying to find ways to hide goodies in unsuspecting everyday objects. I once sawed a tomato soup can in half after steaming off the label. I proceeded to scoop out the goop, fill it with a gift card, sand, and padding to the EXACT weight listed on the can, and re-glue the label. That takes a lot of work and artistry for a gift which will spend only a fraction of its life under wraps and in the food pantry.
Just to see if I could, I made a three layer postcard with the center layer cut out for a dollar bill. When the whole thing was sandwiched together, ironed and trimmed, it just looked like an ordinary postcard. I mailed it off to my family. They received it fine, but were unwilling to destroy the card to retrieve the hidden money in the interior of the card. I should have used a three layer cake instead - funny how everyone seems to tear those apart without remorse?
These days I am lucky if I even want to mess with decorative wrapping paper since I hate storing the stuff for every specialized holiday. I think it would be just easier to get some barrio taggers to spray paint all over gifts before I give them to the recipients. I recently decided that a dark RED plastic Target bag was so opaque, it would prove BETTER than any old flimsy wrapping paper. So I cut it up and dressed the Christmas booty in it. Except for my Dad’s Christmas honoraria, wrapped in crossword puzzles and funnies – I think those Target-bag wrapped gifts are sure to be better READ than anything from our scrawny rag of a newspaper!
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