Yesterday I decided it was time to tackle the mountain of shipping boxes and bags in my dressing room and get all the holiday gifts ready for distribution.
Over the years, I've reached the point where I have TWO plastic caddies for gift wrapping supplies: one for rolls of paper and the other for gift bags, tags, etc. But this degree of organization means that I can safely store everything for years and years and years, which brings me to the point of this story.
At some juncture in my life - and I'm thinking it has to have been a good 15+ years ago at this point - I purchased several really, really ridiculously long rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. One was green with penguins, another features a green, blue and magenta ornament design, and a third has an off-white background with holiday greenery. My niece and nephew (ages 20 and 15) have seen this paper under the tree throughout their entire lives.
This is not good quality paper. It's thin, tears easily, and sort of wads into place rather than folding neatly. But the lack of quality has been amply outweighed by the copious quantity. It's been my go-to for large boxes for more than a decade. Within the last couple of years, I finally used up the green penguin paper, but the other two are still going strong...and I hate them.
Yes, I have purchased other wrapping paper and gift bags since I got the rolls of paper in question, but that just means they last longer. And even when I make a concerted effort to use those rolls as much as possible, there's just so much paper on them.
There was a time when I took great pride in wrapping gifts beautifully. As a college student, I worked at Sears and enjoyed wrapping gifts with the heavy paper, double-sided tape and beautiful bows they had. This cheap, shitty paper ruins all that. Only with the squarest of boxes can I get a halfway good result, mostly from distracting the eye with a nice bow.
But I'm thrifty and persistent, so I will use up those rolls of paper. Brace yourselves, family. Here it is again.