Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

Ho Ho Ho!! Well it seems Santa Claus is coming to town. Or in this case, Auntie Kari is coming to town! I spent a good part of yesterday and this morning sorting through the gifts I've purchased for family and friends and then set about the task of wrapping them all. This used to be on all day event until I discovered Christmas bags! I love them. It goes so much easier than trying to find a box for those odd shaped gifts and then dealing with all the wrapping paper. Although, I still feel somewhat guilty about taking this route. Not sure why. Afterall, it's not the packaging that really matters. So they say.

My friend tells the story about how she was home for Christmas a few years ago and went with her family to the church service on Christmas Day. The church had gotten a new pastor since she had been there last and so this was her introduction to him. She recounts how his homily started that day. This is now second hand, but it went something like this, "This is the time of year when alot of time is spent on pondering gifts and worrying about wrapping them up just right. But we shouldn't worry about what's on the outside. It's what's on the inside that really matters. Why just the other day I received a gift that came wrapped in a plain old newspaper. I can't remember what the gift was but..." My friend said she and her siblings couldn't look at each other for fear of setting off the dreaded laugh-that-must-but-can-not-come-out. Apparently he should have used the other cliche for his homily "It's not the gift itself but the thought that counts" since the gift was rather forgettable.

That's kind of been a fear of mine. I don't want my gifts to be forgettable. I work very hard at picking out just the right items for people. Which is why I think I feel compulsive about then taking the extra time and care to "wrap it with love" versus just throwing it in a bag. But have you tried loading up a car full of gifts in a manner that won't squish any bows? It's an engineering puzzle for sure. And then the gifts just get ripped into anyway right?

Maybe there can be a happy medium somewhere in the gift-wrapping world. That's the place I tried to go to this year. I put some gifts in bags and wrapped others. Although I have to say my most memorable Christmas wrapping year (and the one I'm most proud of) was the year I focused on recycling. I didn't use any store bought wrapping or bags. I used material from my mothers endless fabric collection (years of well-intentioned projects that never saw a sewing machine), old newspapers, and other miscellaneous and creative coverings.

So whatever you choose to wrap your gifts with this year just remember it's not what's on the outside that really mattters...unless it does!




I'm counting my hour of shoveling as exercise today!
Post post note: According to calorielab.com I just burned around 340 calories. So heck, I am for sure counting that as exercise!