Old School Gift Wrap

by Patti


S has a Pavlovian response to bags. Anytime anybody walks through the door with a bag in their hand, whether it be a plastic grocery bag or a sparkly gift bag, she automatically assumes it is a gift, and that it is for her. Her eyes immediately start to glimmer and she coyly asks, "for me?"

So I was surprised the other night when M walked through the door with a perfectly gift-y looking bag and she did not immediately run up to him and pretend to love on him while strategically craning her neck to get a gander into the bag. M placed the bag in front of her, the pastel gift tissue seductively swishing, and she looked at it rather plainly. "What's the matter?" I asked her.
"I just miss real wrapping paper. Everything always comes in bags now, and you just take the present out. It's not as fun."

I thought about what she said and realized she was absolutely right. Growing up, all of our gifts came, well, wrapped. Layer after layer of crinkly, colorful paper would make the unwrapping process a delicious torture. Some kids would just tear into the paper mercilessly, eager to get to the goods. Others, aware of the care that went into the intricate wrapping of the gift, lingered, slowly peeling of the scotch tape, folding the paper gingerly, torturing their audience as they waited for the gem to be revealed. The point is, we had a choice on how to open our gifts, and the surprise always lay underneath - waiting to be discovered. Now? The gift is stuffed into a bag with some tissue wrapped around it for "effect", and all a kid has to do is put his hand in the bag and BOOM! The surprise is over.

Are gift bags a sign of the times? Has even gift-giving become a HURRYUPHURRYUPHURRYUP 
endeavor that we just want to get over with as quickly as possible? Or have we become such an instant gratification society that we can't even take a moment to wrap something up and top it with a bow, and then take even longer to unwrap it? Instead, we must shove gift in and pull gift out with minimal pomp and circumstance. Has gift giving and opening become microwavable?

I was touched and also a little afraid by S's observation -- touched because, wow, how cool is that my kid, who has only ever known instant gratification, wants to slow things down; afraid, because wow, my kid has only ever known instant gratification and what if it just spins out of control to the point that nothing ever again will be worth the wait for her?

This year, all of her Christmas gifts will  be wrapped in candy cane-laced paper and leaping reindeer and winking Santas, topped with red and green bows, and double-taped. And I can't wait to watch her eager fingers trace the cartoon reindeer and undo the satiny bows - even if it takes forever.