Just Thinking: Wrapping up Christmas is no easy task
I compartmentalize Christmas. I have to. It’s the only way I can accomplish it.
Children, by contrast, see the holiday season – any holiday, since according to something called the Interfaith Calendar, 15 religious holidays are celebrated in December – as one glittery swoop that culminates wherever the most presents are.
That makes children sound like an acquisitive crowd, but who can blame them? Kids who celebrate Christmas are encouraged to anticipate the delivery of toys. Yes, the season also involves Advent candles and church services and that hymn about Emmanuel that’s so slow and dirge-like that in another reality, I’m still standing in the Congregational church, singing the line that ends “and ransom captive Issssssssss-ry-elllllll …”
That hymn has five verses. My grandchildren will be in college by the time my other reality self is concluding the third verse (“the gloomy clow-wow-wowds of night …”).
Anyway, I’m focusing on the secular aspects of Christmas: the tree, the gifts, the cards, the wrapping, the running out of tape and having to use Band-Aids and Elmer’s Glue, not that the kids care. And I’m glad they don’t, because if children were given to accepting a gift and turning it this way and that to admire the professional wrapping, the beautiful bow and the flowing script on the card, I would have to hide in another room.
A son-in-law recently celebrated a birthday. The gift I handed to him was almost completely covered in blue paper with colored dots. The part that was, shall we say, somewhat exposed was covered with his birthday card, which I had cleverly taped to the end of the box, sort of like a diaper.
Just Thinking: Self-service isn’t worth checking out
“Please note the elegant wrapping job,” I said when I handed it over.
“I see, and it’s not at all because you ran out of paper,” he said gallantly, which is just one of the reasons I’m so lucky, family-wise.
I long ago decided that while a gift without the gift wrap is bare, the gift wrap itself isn’t important. As I understand it, themed gift wrap wasn’t a thing until relatively recently. Before that, Christmas presents were wrapped in, well, brown paper packages tied up with string.
As long as the recipient has something to tear off in a frenzy, any paper will suffice, although I do avoid wrapping that says, “Happy birthday!” or “Congratulations, graduate!” I’m not averse to wrapping Christmas gifts in white and silver paper intended for a 50th anniversary.
Hey, if it’s that or the Sunday comics, I’ll choose the anniversary paper, because most comics these days appear not to consider children their primary audience. I’d hate to have to explain Pearls Before Swine to a child on Christmas morning.
Gift-wrapping, of course, is the least of my worries. First, a person has to have something to put paper around. This entails many hours of drifting through stores, picking up random objects – humidors, sparkplugs – considering their worth as a gift for a 6-year-old, putting them down and moving on.
Most people don’t shop this way, I know. Most people order everything online. I’ve been known to do that too, but I’m discouraged by “out of stock until April” messages, having to change my password, clicking on all the pictures of traffic lights to prove I’m not a robot and finally, being told I’ve timed out and have to start over.
Every year, some gifts are procured this way, but I can’t describe it, because I repress the memories immediately.
So let’s say I’m looking for a 1,000-piece puzzle. I can’t just pick one off the shelf. I need to see what’s available and eliminate all the puzzles I don’t want: those that are too childish, too dark, too insane (a mass of teeny pixels or a puzzle with no edge pieces) or too Thomas Kinkade. Kinkade has his champions, but they are not 9-year-old boys.
When presents and wrapping are done and safe in their separate compartments, I can focus on Christmas cards and baking. But I see it’s too late to get to those, which is exactly how it goes in real life.
Margo Bartlett can be reached at margo.bartlett@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Just Thinking: Wrapping up Christmas is no easy task
