Christmas Wrapping

Bang! Thump!

I shot out of my bed around 8AM. A huge storm had began late the night before, and it was still going on in the early morning. I was awoken by the sound of a huge thump of some kind. I peered out of my windows, but I didn't see anything wrong around the apartment or my neighbors' house or in the park. I still don't know what it is that woke me up so suddenly.

I was up late last night, so I tried to go back to sleep, which worked until about 9:30. I ready for a little while after that and wrote in my journal, then got dressed and made breakfast. I was eating Multi-Grain Chex with bananas when I heard the sounds of footsteps on my front porch and something heavy being dropped in front of my door.

Two somethings, as it turned out. When I opened the front door, I found a pair of packages. One was from Linda and James Young, the other from my best friend, Lauren Miller. I pulled both inside and just barely managed to finish breakfast before tearing into them.

I did Linda and James' first. There were several packages that said "Do Not Open Until Xmas," including one from their budgie Skuylar and their dog Willow. Those went in the back room until Christmas Day. One was supposed to have been a St. Nicholas Day gift (St. Nicholas Day was the 6th) and was to be opened right away. It was a cute little book of Christmas ideas and essays called Christmas Joy: A Keepsake Book From the Heart of the Home, by Susan Branch. I haven't had the time to really go through it yet, but I like the colorful, folk-ish illustrations and the lovely ideas.

Lauren's was bigger. Turns out she'd sent me something I've debated getting for a while - a food processor. It's tedious to chop many things like cranberries and nuts, but I never found one that could fit in my tiny, overstuffed kitchen. She found one by Cuisinart small enough to fit on my counter between the blender and the spice rack.

Once again, I didn't have the time to try it, because I was too busy doing what I'd planned on doing today...wrap all the Christmas presents I've bought over the past few weeks, including yesterday's. It took me the rest of the afternoon. I had the books for the little kids, the boys' things, my uncle's cookbook, the things for Jessa, and several items for Lauren and one of my other best friends, Amanda. I couldn't find the gift boxes and spent 20 minutes looking for them before I finally used boxes I've had laying around for months in the back room.

Wrapping the Christmas presents was always a big deal in my very artistic family. When Rose, Anny, and I were little, Mom and Dad did it alone, a daunting challenge with lots of big toys like dollhouses and keyboards to wrap! By the time we were around 9 or 10, Mom and Dad started asking Rose and me to help out. We were more than happy to alleviate some of the burden and help surprise our sister and each other, not to mention see what our sisters were getting and what paper Mom would be using for them before they did.

Over the years, my family developed a Christmas Eve system. Two people would wrap the presents of the other, while a third would watch Anny (and later, when Anny got old enough to help, Keefe) and a fourth would greet guests and finish anything that needed to be done downstairs. For instance, Rose, Mom, and I would wrap Anny's presents while she watched Keefe and Dad acted as greeter, then I would switch with Anny and they'd wrap my presents, and so on. After the kids' presents were wrapped, Mom would help all of us wrap Dad's gifts, and Dad would help us wrap Mom's.

Most everyone in our family were and are good with wrapping paper and bows...but Anny was downright amazing. She always showered packages with full compliments of ribbons and bows, often bows made with wired fabric ribbon or raffia. She can still do wonderfully creative things with packages, gift boxes, and baskets. She made a gorgeous basket of crochet items for Rose for her birthday in April.

It took me much longer to wrap presents than I thought it would, and I was almost late for work. Good thing work was on-and-off steady and downright quiet by the time I left at 7:30.