Bad Wrappers Anonymous

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Hello everyone. My name is Kristen and I’m a Bad Wrapper.

Here’s where you’re supposed to say, “Hi Kristen, we’re Bad Wrappers, too.”

God, grant me the serenity to accept that my gifts look terrible, the courage to give them out anyway, and the wisdom to know that nobody cares.

I’m not the kind of person that keeps things neat and tidy, unlike great wrappers.

wrappers

On the Myers-Briggs, I fit squarely on the Perceiving side, not the Judging side. I probably could have been an art teacher if I could draw more than a stick figure. Have you seen an art teacher’s classroom? That’s what I mean. Those are my people.

I remember as a kid, my grandma tried for years to teach me how to wrap gifts. She made beautiful creases and delicate folds, encapsulating every ugly 90s sweater in its special Elder Beerman box (here I am, really dating myself!), paper laying down softly on top, with a bow as the pièce de résistance that she’d literally take off afterward and keep in her attic to reuse for the next 5 years (why, not sure but I guess it had something to do with her parents living through the Great Depression). But I digress, unless you had a grandma like that, too. And then we should totally talk.

Finally I became old enough to wrap and I’d fantasize that my presents would look that great, minus the bow thing because, hey, you can get 100 bows for $1 at the Dollar Tree, so we can all splurge on that.

I tried wrapping like Grandma and realized geez, I ripped that corner. Let’s put some tape on it. Oops, that fold was kind of bad. I’ll flip it on the other side. Maybe I can put a bow to cover that hole.

My friends were gracious in getting gifts that took about a half hour to open because it had so much tape on it. “Maybe your sister should help you wrap,” my mom said good-naturedly, considering she was a Bad Wrapper, too (I guess it’s genetic!).

My dad and my ex-husband were beautiful wrappers but as we all know, men don’t spend any time wrapping presents. They don’t shop for presents, they don’t wrap. Nobody would know if they were Wrap Artists. Let’s normalize “Male Wrapping.”

I’ve accepted that I really am more of a bag person by nature.

I collect bags and reuse them. I’m one of those weirdos with bags of bags of bags in my basement and the men in my life are always like, “What is going on with that? That one is from three Easters ago.” They don’t understand. Men don’t worry about it. They get a woman to do it or just put a gift card in a Christmas card. Whatever. That’s my problem, though; as a woman who can’t wrap, I’m less useful for sure. Hopefully my future mate will not have wrapping as a life priority.

But after all, all presents are beautiful. Afterall, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. There are no Gift Beauty Pageants. No Wrapper Bikinis (though maybe that should be a thing… wow, I just came up with a genius idea).

Besides, I’m pretty sure my kids are going to turn into Beautiful Wrappers. My problems will be solved when they’re old enough to use scissors and tape without stabbing themselves.

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