Wrapping presents ...

I used to love it when a DSis and young niece came from across the pond for Christmas. Niece loved wrapping! She would do nearly all mine beautifully.

I loved it once, now it’s just another chore, but made more bearable with carols playing, and a glass or two of mulled wine.

If I were rich, I'd pay someone competent to wrap mine...and they would be classier gifts, obviously, so might be even more difficult. A rocking horse might be a challenge.

I enjoy wrapping presents, although it can be quite tiring when there are lots. I always bought pretty coloured ribbon to decorate the gifts, then the girls could wear them in their lovely long hair. ♥️

I hate Sellotape !
I love present bags especially if the present is wrapped in
tissue .
Otherwise , wrapping isn't my favourite pastime .
My Japanese friend showed me her trick .
She makes a pile of paper bags in pretty paper , inserts the gift and cuts them down .
I have tried it using a Pritt stick .
I've tried her origami decorations too .
I conclude that she was born to do it and I wasn't !
Other friends have resorted to buying Christmas fabric ,edging it and tying a bow to finish .This is OK in families , where the expensive fabric can be reused .
Otherwise , I use a Pritt stick to seal the gift wrap and only apply sellotape to the brown paper if I'm posting it .

crazyH

I’ve always been of the opinion that little ones like mine, prefer lots of little pressies than one big present. Their parents deal with the main gifts. I’ll stick to ‘tacky’ 😂

Same !

My wrapping paper theme is earthy coloured this year. I've avoided nasty plastic sellotape by buying a paper recyclable tape with Christmas trees on it. It is easy to tear with my fingers and sticks well too.
Wouldn't wrapping presents with newspaper give everyone filthy dirty hands on Christmas Day in their best clothes?

If you put something moderately heavy, such as your paper scissors or knife down on the parcel were the two long edges of the paper meet, you can put the string under the parcel, bring it round and tie a knot, then do the scissors trick again on either short edge of the parcel, where you don't tie a knot but bring either end of the string under the knot in the middle then fish them out and tie the bow.

So you don't need sellotape at all!

I can hear you all shouting "Get a life!" as I write this, but I watched a very pleasant video on yt showing the many different ways of wrapping presents using only one piece of tape, and I don't even have many to wrap 🤣

I have a mountain of gifts to wrap up in my dining room. I open the door, fully intending to wrap a few, then quietly close the door again.

It's not just the sellotape that drives me insane. It's ridiculous shaped articles that are impossible to wrap, it's wrapping paper that suddenly decides to tear, scissors that are there one minute, then gone the next.

We used to have a lovely tradition. Christmas Eve. Glass or two of wine. Christmas music. The pair of us happily smiling as we wrapped the few presents for first baby.

By the time we had our third it became a nightmare rush so that tradition died.

Now we have 12 people to buy for. Four are children who have at least 10 gifts each . It's become a nightmare.

But we will do it and the smiles and laughs on Christmas Day from them all makes it all worthwhile

I bought a load of Christmas bags of different sizes from Aldi this year. I do put sticky tape across the tops so the kids can’t see in before opening time.

Oh dear Woolies so miss it at this time of the year. There is a Wollie sized hole in our High Street.

Jaxjacky

We too have a sellotape dispenser Marmin it makes life easier, I’m also lucky as MrJ wraps all of ours, I only have to do from me to him.

Same here. Couldn’t do all the wrapping without it.

As someone else mentioned on another thread the other day, who else’s family used to open presents carefully and save any suitable paper for the following year? We used to iron it! I can remember being very excited when the box of old wrapping paper came out! I loved wrapping the little presents bought with my pocket money. I still remember being very pleased to find something nice for a younger sibling for 9d - in Woolies, of course. 🎄🎅🏻

I’ve always been of the opinion that little ones like mine, prefer lots of little pressies than one big present. Their parents deal with the main gifts. I’ll stick to ‘tacky’ 😂

I spent hours yesterday wrapping the presents, and then I put them in a Santa sack. Xmas bags are ok, but you look inside and there it is, but for the kids, I like to wrap their presents first and then put them all in the sack. The excitement in their faces as they unwrap is priceless !

Watched Paddington 1 last night and Paddington Bear got himself into rather a mess with the sellotape 😂😂😂

I use bags nowadays, where possible. I get them in places like Poundland, who sell them cheaply and I also save bags that I’ve received. I tell my kids to save the ones they get and I’ll reuse them if they don’t want them.

We too have a sellotape dispenser Marmin it makes life easier, I’m also lucky as MrJ wraps all of ours, I only have to do from me to him.

and why is the wrapping paper, whether saved from last year or bnard new, always half an inch shorter than the roesent you want to wrap in it.

I bought my Christmas bags from QVC, So much easier than dealing with paper and Sellotape.

Christmas bags all the way.
Reusable and with ribbon pull chords and nice bow on either side .
Think about 10.99 from Amazon , can't do links sorry

My aunt got around the sellotape problem as she got older she wrapped presents from corner to corner like Fish and chips then she only needed one piece of sellotape. She had them all precut and placed them around a plate before she started.

We all comptomise with wrapping. We do spend to get a sellotape holder with built in serrated edge. This gets around the problem desscribed. We save by using newspaper to wrap presents in. There is a bit of competition to find a front page picture of note for 'main' presents. I was particularly pleased with the gurning image of Boris I used last year.

I bought bags last year and I am reusing them this year so no sellotape involved!