How to wrap presents
or
It's Christmas, dammit! Make it special!
I know I'm noding this too late for this holiday season, but remember it for birthdays and for next year.
philosophy
There are very good reasons to wrap presents nicely (whether for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwaanzaa, Winter Solstice, Birthdays, et cetera.) Doing a nice job wrapping presents shows that you spent some time and effort doing it. It demonstrates that the present was more than some hastily-purchased item that vaguely reminded you of the recipient that you bought so you could get out of the mall quickly.
A slapdash wrapping, with no attention to detail, makes it look like buying the recipient a present was some sort of chore. (It was, of course - the holiday season is hell. But honesty is not the best policy with this sort of emotion.) A gift that is nicely wrapped, on the other hand, shows that not only did you spend time and money on the selection of the gift, but on its presentation. That even the littlest details matter because you care about the recipient that much. The happiness and excitement that a recipient feels upon being presented with a beautiful package carries over into their feelings about the present itself.
supplies
You will need nice materials to do this. That generally means spending a little more, but then, if you've spent ten bucks on a present, which is probably a minimum, well, it's worth 50 cents more to make it look really nice. I use the following items:
- Gift wrap
- The normal stuff on rolls
Cough up a buck or two more for the much nicer looking stuff. Big cartoon Santas lose their charm if the recipient is over six years old. It is not worth economizing with the crappy-looking paper. Come on, this is only once a year!
- Tissue paper
There are a variety of fancy tissue papers, of various weights and in different designs. These are nice as a counterpoint to normal wrapping paper. Additionally, some plain colored tissue is necessary for lining boxes.
- Foil
Foil-style tissue looks really impressive for some reason. This tends to be a dollar or two for two to three pieces, 1.5 feet by 2 feet. Thus, each sheet will wrap two CDs, smallish books, or similar items. Especially nice is transparent, iridescent foil. I buy a package of this every year and it makes any wrapping paper or tissue underneath look incredible.
- Ribbon
I like to buy the narrow, foil-style ribbon. Always pick the narrowest size, because it curls far better than any larger size will. Foil-style is preferable to normal because it matches foil paper better and is a pleasing accent to regular wrapping paper. Satin-finish ribbon looks tacky.
- Bows
Buy whichever ones match your ribbon nicely.
- Tape
You need magic tape so that it is not obvious on normal wrapping paper or tissue paper. Shiny looks much better on foil paper, and double-stick tape, placed so that the tape is hidden by the paper, looks incredibly nice. In fact, double-stick tape can really make the difference between a present looking really good and one looking ordinary. It's impossible to crease foil-type paper, however, so ordinary shiny Scotch tape is necessary to fasten it.
- Label tags
- Boxes, bags, etc.
Minimize your use of gift bags, and always wrap the individual items inside. It's tacky otherwise.
Now, I generally try to stock up after the holidays, because the expensive bows and papers suddenly become incredibly cheap. Buying them for 50-75% off for next year helps allay the material costs involved. Also, if you aren't giving too many gifts, it's easier to limit yourself to a couple colors. Friends won't know that everyone else got purple paper too, and if you give several items, you can coordinate them, and it looks as though there is a particular color scheme. I wrap most items in tissue or foil, as they look nicer, but wrap is nice for larger items.
the act itself
You don't need any special skill to do this - as a matter of fact, I've never been good at the mechanics of wrapping. Working slowly and taking the time to do a nice job is the important part here.
When working with normal wrapping paper, cut the paper properly (obviously). Every edge that will be visible when you're done should be folded over and creased, which makes for much crisper-looking wrapping. Edges should be creased slightly on the corners of the gift. If you wrap something in tissue paper, it can be creased especially tightly. Generally it's best to use at least two layers of tissue because it's not always completely opaque. Both tissue and regular paper look nicer if double-stick tape is used underneith each flap and edge to secure the wrap to itself rather than allowing the tape to be visible. And don't tape the paper to the gift itself. That's lame.
Foil will, of necessity, be looser, and it's harder to get the edges tight. That's ok; it bunches in a nice-looking way after ribbon is applied. Since 'foil' is generally actually mylar plastic, it won't crease at all and thus it can be hard to work with. Go slow.
Any present of any size at all should have ribbon and a bow attached. Cut the ribbon at least twice as long as needed and curl the excess with a pair of scissors and your finger. Oddly-shaped presents are especially good uses for tissue. Tissue paper wraps much more nicely around wine bottles and the like; just bunch it around the bottle, twist the top slightly, and tie with a ribbon.
Most importantly, go slowly. Wrap as you buy, so you're not spending hours on Christmas Eve, and spend a few minutes on each present.
technique and presentation
The best way to make gifts look nice is to buy several small things, or a gift and several cheap 'accessory' gifts to accompany it. This always seems more special to the recipient than simply one gift. Buy a nice chocolate bar, or a tiny bag of some fancy coffee, or something similar. And if you do decide on a multiple present approach, don't even consider wrapping them all together.
Now, I'll explain using examples. This year, lacking any real ideas for my mother, I decided to assemble a gift basket of bath products. I went with the overpriced, nice-smelling things that my mother likes borrowing from me but won't buy herself.
I bought a cheap basket, and gold and purple tissue paper, gold ribbon, purple foil, and purple 'foil shred' (it's like foil Easter Grass.) The color theme was chosen to suggest opulence, as the idea was to buy her the luxuries that are too frivolous to buy herself. The items, including the small ones, were individually wrapped in tissue, being oddly shaped, and were tied with ribbon. I arranged them nicely in a basket lined with purple tissue and filled with foil shred. Finally, I bought a magazine subscription for her, and bought a copy at a bookstore, wrapped it in foil, and put it in the basket. Thus there was a single, substantive present and a bunch of smaller things around it. All of the basket's contents were wrapped in purple or gold.
Now, for my father, I bought three CDs that I knew he wanted. But CDs are too obvious wrapped up. So I took a slim box used to deliver a catalog, and a larger one from a keyboard, and put the CDs in them. Into the keyboard box I put a bunch of dried beans to give it a little heft and sound. The last CD I wrapped without a box, just to confuse him a little more.
The point here is to suggest that a certain amount of creativity and effort in display makes a gift more special. Even if you aren't terribly skilled at wrapping gifts perfectly, you can make someone laugh as they open a box of dried beans with a cd hidden underneath. The presentation makes the package, as they say, and making it take a little longer to open presents, and working to make them look nice, is a worthwhile endeavor.