I have always loved beautifully wrapped Christmas presents. Shiny foil paper with ribbons and bows are my favourite. It's not about receiving the beautiful presents but about creating them. Every year, I have a clear vision in my mind of what I want the presents to look like. I pull out the wrapping, bows, tape, ribbon and scissors with great hope and trepidation. Then harsh reality sets in. I have to cut the paper in a straight-ish line and without the jagged mini-cuts that I normally do. I have to judge how much wrapping paper I need for a particular present. If I succeed in the first two steps, I have to crease and fold the paper and while holding that in place I have to rip off an appropriate sized piece of tape and place it on the paper so it actually holds things together.
Things really fall apart at this stage. I usually end of with too much paper in the wrong spots so it bulges and many pieces of tape holding together the spots that I missed with the first piece of tape. Somehow, and I've never quite figured out how, the paper rips and I don't notice until I've done all of the other steps. There is no way that I am going to start again! I grab the ribbon and try to cut the right length. I've tried wrapping the ribbon around the present and then cutting the right length but holding the cut end down and rolling the whole bunch of ribbon around the present and then holding the place to cut leads to chaos. I then have to tie or tape the ends of the ribbon so it stays on the presents. I use scissors to get the ribbon to curl the right way (you're probably rightfully shuddering at the thought of me pulling the ribbon across the scissor blade and not cutting the ribbon or myself in the process).
Finally, I get to the relatively easy part of putting self sticking bows on the present. I say relatively because I usually miss the place where the ribbons comes together on the first try. You can't pull the bow up without ripping the wrapping paper under it (trust me, I've tried many many many times). Then I add some extra bows to cover the bulges and rips. Next, I look at the final result -yikes, not quite what I hoped the end product to look like.
My very clever wife has purchased many gift bags over the years and has shown me how to make the tissue poke out of the top of the bag in a decorative and enticing way. Then she pretends that it looks decorative and enticing when it ends up as a crunched up ball sticking out of the bag. Bags just don't feel the same as a pretty present to me though, they don't draw the eye and excite the same way. They just sit awkwardly under the tree as a glaring reminder that I couldn't do what I wanted.
On another note, having the right spouse makes a world of difference to my uncoordinated life. She never mocks my presents and always appreciates the effort that I put into it. Two months ago, I knocked my second favourite coffee mug over and smashed it to pieces. One of my first presents this year was a new coffee mug (it has already edged out my former favourite mug to become most favoured). There were no warnings not to smash this one too or condemnation about my frequent breakages. All she said was, I thought that you needed a new second favourite mug - I ordered it right after you broke the other one. Then she took it for me and put it somewhere safe while I opened the rest of the presents so that there would be no Christmas tragedies. It is so nice to be understood.
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