Friday thing : gift box
More signaling adulthood, soap opera-style
Shortly after we married and were fortunate enough to buy our first house in the mythical 1990s, I also got myself a glue gun. It cost only a few dollars and felt like a necessity; I was in a powerful Martha Stewart phase. One of the first things I decided to craft was a gift box like the kind in movies and soap operas - the ones without hastily stuck scraps of Scotch tape, with paper & ribbon that stays intact and pretty as the receiver lifts a lid to reveal their present instead of an ugly cardboard box.1
Without researching my unquestionably-embarrassing journals of the time, I think this desire was part of my Good Wife/Happy Life vision. Nothing hasty, everything staying intact and pretty. I vacuumed a lot then, and planned dinners, remembered to check the mail every day, folded laundry before two weeks had passed…all without the bone-numbing exhaustion I feel just thinking about these tasks most days now. I grew up watching All My Children/One Life to Live back-to-back with my grandma during summer breaks and on sick days home from school before I graduated to Days of Our Lives in junior high. Neat homes and dining tables set with multiple side dishes were seemingly standard for grown-up life and when those people gave gifts, no one had to rip off the wrapping paper like a savage.2
So, I got to work with my new glue gun, rolls of heavy duty holiday paper & ribbon, and a perfectly square lidded box I found. I remember a lot of angst trying to get the paper to fold properly without wrinkles. The ribbon was nearly impossible to line up. There were burned fingertips, a few tears, and a lot of yelling at the dogs. In the end, I decided to accept that illusion was the point so the bottom of the box is bare, and inside the lid looks like a preschooler hijacked the scissors and glue gun.
Every year since then, I’ve tucked one of my husband’s gifts in the box and when it goes under the tree, we all feel a little more picture-perfect for awhile.
95% of the gifts I give are still like this, except that my tape is precisely applied. #Virgo
I have always been a little dramatic. #AlsoVirgo
I look forward to opening this box every year
I too used to focus a bit obsessively on making sure gifts look perfect. Nowadays, I use cloth bags for everyone in my house and paper bags for everyone else and spend as little time as possible wrapping gifts. With the cloth bags, it takes less than a minute, which delights me.