An outsourcer or a crafty creative: What kind of present wrapper are you?

2 months ago 17

For some, it’s an opportunity to express their creativity – and their love – for the people they’re presenting with a gift. For others though, it’s yet another task to be completed as the clock ticks down to Christmas Day.

Gift giving is a key part of the season and with that comes wrapping presents. While psychologists have long acknowledged that the anticipation of the reveal has a positive effect on our wellbeing, wrapping can also elevate something fairly mundane to an extraordinary offering, Meghan Markle style.

Whether you spend two minutes or all afternoon working on the right way to wrap gifts, there’s no right or wrong way to wrap a present. Here are five wrapper “types” to watch out for. Which one are you?

Christmas wrappers come in different shapes and sizes but for some, it’s their time to shine.

The Christmas creative

For the Christmas creative, the biggest gift giving season of the year is their time to shine. While most probably don’t have a permanent wrapping room, they have been looking forward to this all year, stockpiling materials. Those who live with a Christmas creative beware: they may want to set up a temporary station with everything at the ready, from an array of colour-coordinated Christmas themed papers to ribbons, bows, stamps and even foliage. Handy with a hot-glue gun, the Christmas creative will be able to wax lyrical about this year’s wrapping trends – as well as knowing where to find the sticky tape dispenser. Cards, naturally, will be handmade, the result of a crafternoon with like-minded friends after consulting Pinterest boards and crafting accounts on social media. Picking up a new skill, like origami, is all part of the fun.

Will family members appreciate all this effort? Highly unlikely. But then, for most Christmas creatives, that’s not the point. Instead, they will bask in the beauty of their efforts, however fleeting they may be, as their colour-coordinated gifts are assembled under the tree.

Let’s just get this done

These wrappers understand that part of the joy of Christmas is about the anticipation of what lies within but, either because they are time poor, or just the sheer volume of gifts they have to wrap, they are not inclined to waste time on fancy papers or wrapping techniques. Others are just not that into aesthetics. If it’s Christmas paper, we’re good. Indeed, the “let’s just get this done” wrapper often dispenses with cards altogether, preferring to write names directly onto the wrapped gift. As long as the present gets where it needs to go, it’s a win.

You can often find the “let’s just get it done” wrapper hovering around the boxes of Christmas paper at the supermarket looking for the best bulk-buy option.

The Japanese practice of Furoshiki uses fabric rather than paper. It’s popular among no-waste wrappers.

Put everything in a bag

This wrapper is hardly a wrapper at all. In fact, that’s the point. Who needs to fiddle around with scissors and sticky tape when you can just put it in a Christmas-themed bag in seconds? These wrappers don’t mind spending a bit more on Christmas bags, and even tissue paper for padding, rather than rolls of paper if it means less time and more convenience.

The downside is that come gift giving time, there’s no sense of anticipation but hey, for the “put everything in a bag” wrapper, it’s the thought that counts. And if they’re careful not to write on the attached card, they can use the same bags again next year.

The sustainable wrapper

Not that long ago, the sustainable wrapper would have been content with wrapping gifts in recycled paper, but in recent years, the bar has been raised. Committed sustainable wrappers will now go to lengths to avoid using any materials that cannot be reused. Expect gifts wrapped Furoshiki-style, the Japanese method using fabric instead of paper, and wrapping secured with elastic bands rather than disposable sticky tape.

The sustainable wrapper is also the most likely to be the one collecting everyone else’s wrapping paper and ribbons for the recycling bin or for reuse at a later date. At their most obnoxious, they will lecture family members on the waste of non-recyclable papers and packaging. Expect presents wrapped in familiar-looking paper next Christmas, or, if they’re hardcore, no present at all.

The outsourcer

Not as prevalent as they once were in these days of online shopping, the outsourcer will happily hand over wrapping responsibilities to a stretched retail worker or shopping centre wrapping service. Without the time to – or the interest in – completing the task themselves, the worst of the outsourcers will be tapping their toe with impatience because, frankly, they can’t understand what is taking so long.

Think that scene in Love Actually with Rowan Atkinson and Alan Rickman. Some gifts just keep on giving.

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