Wrapping Paper Capers

I believe it’s called ‘scotch’ tape because wrapping gifts drives some of us to drink. I prefer gin tape myself. Mixed with a bit of tonic and a slice of lime, a glass or three may not help my wrapping abilities, but all gifts look lovelier when they’re a little bit blurry.

Joe says that based on my scissors skills alone, he’s surprised they let me pass kindergarten. Well, then, let’s hope he enjoys the bathroom cleaner he’ll find under the tree this year!

Seriously, though, I didn’t come by this handicap honestly. My mother could wrap a present into the shape of the bloody Buckingham Palace, complete with dancing sugarplum fairies and a working waterfall.

Mum’s heart was in her hands. Growing up in a tiny Canada-U.S. border town during the Great Depression, she learned how to take a few simple ingredients, add some love, and make something beautiful out of nothing. In her hands, lowly ham hocks, boiled potatoes and cabbage became a gourmet feast. With some seeds and a rocky plot of earth, she would raise up stunning snapdragons, petunias, and roses, plump red tomatoes and crisp cucumbers. She could knit. She could crochet. And she could sew.

About the only ugly things she ever made were clothes for me, and I think that was intentional. (Really, Mum, that pink and orange pantsuit made me look like a neon sign for a cocktail lounge.)

But Christmas was Mum’s favourite time of year, and she would work for weeks beforehand, spinning her magical whimsy all through the house, with sparkling Christmas ornaments and baked cookies and warm candlelight. And perfectly wrapped presents with the patterns aligned across the seams, all tied up with curled ribbons and shiny gold and silver bows.

Unfortunately, I fell far from the (Christmas) tree. If my mum’s heart was in her hands, my heart is in my head. And if you ask my brain about the relationship it has with my thumbs, it will reply: “It’s complicated.”

My thumbs don’t feel a connection to my brain, nor a sense of duty. They’re stubborn and won’t be told what to do. So the paper I carefully lay out and measure to fit the present always comes up short. At the ends of the box, the corners are folded worse than a fitted sheet. And the scotch (or gin) tape ends up tangled in my hair. If it does manage to hit the paper, it misses the seam, or it’s crumpled like a slice of undercooked bacon.

When the kids were small, I blamed them for the rumpled mess that bedecked my gifts. “The kids love to help me with the wrapping,” I would claim, and it worked until the kids got old enough to talk and deny it all.

Mum went into hospital two years ago on Christmas Day and never came back out. She passed away just before New Year’s Eve. Given only one day to clean out her room in the nursing home, we threw everything into boxes, including all of her sparkly paper, ribbons and bows, still set out on her desk for the gifts she’d been in the midst of wrapping for all of us.

Mum’s Christmas things went into storage, but this year, in our new home, I decided it was time to unpack it. By “it”, I don’t just mean unpacking the box.

I measured her wrapping paper, and the gift fit. The ends folded up into smart right angles, clicking their heels together with military precision. I tied on her ribbons and bows. When I made a mistake, I started over. And in the end, the presents looked…beautiful. Not perfect. But under the tree, in a darkened room, with the glowing lights, they look pretty good, and I think my mum would be proud.

A funny thing my mum did with presents, though, is she would leave the price tag on. Not to be tacky, but because she seemed to think I didn’t understand the value of things.

Perhaps she was right. I probably didn’t value our relationship enough when she was alive, as it was complicated in its own right. I’d give anything to have her here this Christmas, but adding her ribbons and bows and sparkly things to our celebrations is a little bit of her legacy I can now carry on.

Have a Merry Christmas if you celebrate, and either way, hug your loved ones extra tight. Be sure they know that you truly understand the value of them and everything they do.