It’s Christmas present wrapping night!

Oh, yay! Tonight is the big night! I wait all year for this! It’s Christmas present wrapping night! Last night I could barely sleep! Visions of red and green wrapping paper were dancing through my head! I’m so psyched! I’m so excited!

I’m so … weird.

Yeah, I’m that odd duck who actually loves wrapping presents. I normally like to wrap solitary presents through the year but then when Christmas comes, it’s like that times 30 because I have so many more presents to wrap. I have wrapping night every year and get most of it done in one shot. I put Christmas music on and hum along like one of Santa’s elves. I even wrap a lot of Steve’s presents, just for fun.

I’m not sure why I like wrapping so much because I really don’t care for shopping. I like to be generous and give but when it comes to trekking to store after store to find something and standing in line with half of New Castle County, it’s a circle of hell. The fun really starts once I get everything home and can organize it and wrap it. There’s nothing more satisfying then seeing piles of rectangles wrapped in paper with Santas and gingerbread men and Christmas trees on them. It’s just part of my sense of anal retentiveness. I was always that way. As a kid, I would get a kick out of spending Christmas Eve meticulously arranging my presents under the tree until I found an arrangement I liked.

I don’t do anything fancy when I wrap. I never use bows or ribbons because then you can’t stack the presents. I just get cheap paper because you’re just going to rip it anyway. There’s a secret to wrapping efficiently: Wrap the bigger packages first and then use the leftover scraps of paper to wrap smaller packages. That way, you can save some paper for next Christmas!

Now you know.

Every present must be wrapped. I won’t leave anything in an Amazon box and present it to the recipient; the gift must be in wrapping paper. I bought some little boxes for gift cards but even though the boxes have Christmas designs on them, I still wrap them. That way, I can stick the gift tag on the paper and not the box so the recipient can use the box. If I ever had enough money to give someone a car for present, I would not stop at putting a big red bow on the roof. I would insist on buying $300 worth of paper and covering the whole car. I’m sure if I could afford a car for someone, I would be able to spring for wrapping paper.

I am galled by the existence of gift bags. I don’t use them unless I’m buying booze or something that you can’t easily wrap. If I were to use gift bags, I wouldn’t be able to wrap the present, and where’s the fun in that? Plus, it would be much more expensive to buy gift bags for everything for Christmas, rather than just some dollar store paper. Yes, I’m the odd duck who goes out of his way not to use a convenience that most people appreciate.

You know what? I just had a sad thought. Tomorrow, wrapping night will be over and I won’t be able to wrap en masse until next Christmas.

Sigh. No wonder people get so depressed around the holidays.