No, we haven’t started decorating yet. We haven’t even started writing Christmas cards, giving thought to Christmas meals, or who will be where. Those are all things to come later, but not much later.
No, practically from the moment that Home Depot starts putting out the artificial trees, or the real ones were being cut and bound in New Brunswick, we began the task of inventory. Her Ladyship does most of her shopping on line, and so that she’s not caught up in the containers lining the docks in Los Angeles, she plans well ahead. Much of her gift collection – I call it that because it goes well beyond just “Christmas shopping”, has arrived and is in place, hiding in every nook and cranny of the house. But what is overlooked so often in American households is a thorough review of the wrapping inventory.
We did that the other day. Pulled out the boxes of wrapping paper. Tossed some vintage bows that have seen better days. Even came across a receipt from Filene’s. Most of you won’t remember Filene’s, or even the famous Filene’s Basement in Boston. That was back before the internet. People would actually go into box stores to do the bulk of their shopping, particularly at Christmas time. That was in the days when Black Friday was really a thing. People made shopping trips on the day after Thanksgiving, because, well, nobody was working except the people in the stores. By way of background, I should tell you that Filene’s went the way of Jordan Marsh and other proud retailers of the last century. If memory serves, the two merged, in what became one of the greatest corporate partnerships since Studebaker and Packard, and they’re now part of Macy’s. But I digress.
In conducting a true inventory, it’s important to estimate exactly how much we’ll need. Those little felt gift bags into which we now put gift cards, are on “standby” in case we run short when the actually wrapping process begins. Of course, that can’t happen until the tree is up, so you can see that the whole process is a delicate sequence not unlike dominoes.
Years ago, it was the tradition to save everything for the future. A piece of used wrapping paper, too small to use on anything but a jewelry box, would be saved anyway, going into the wrapping paper containers. If you don’t know what a wrapping container is, it’s about six feet long and eighteen inches wide, thus accommodating the rolls of paper. Bow boxes, on the other hand, are about two feet square. They contain all of the bows we’ve either torn off last year’s packages and deemed salvageable, or new bags of bows that we’ve purchased at some point. If you’re on the hunt for bows, the larger ones are the most prized, apparently, and therefore the most difficult to find. Some folks are a bit “vintage”, old-school, neo-Victorian. They like buy rolls of ribbon and make their own bows. Now, there’s a lost art, like cigar-rolling. It indicates a compulsive need to hang on to traditions as well as a bit too much free time. Again, in ages past, some folks would actually have their packages wrapped by professional package wrapper right in the store. I know, right? Just try to get Alexa to do that on command.
The wrapping paper has been assessed – I stand by and watch it unfold. It’s been declared enough for this year, and no restocking needed until 2022. We don’t actually count the rolls, because Her Ladyship can pretty much eyeball it. The bows are barely adequate. Two bags are acceptable but won’t draw excitement. My experience in the field of Christmas bows is that they are rarely the right color, size, etc. The rule seems to be that, no matter how many you have on hand, it will never be enough. Purchases will loom large over the next few weeks.
The other two items in stock are gift boxes and tags. For some reason, I don’t know why we save the empty sheets where tags used to be. There blank spots in remarkable patterns. Why did we put those back in the storage boxes? In any event, shipment after shipment of gift tags will be on the front doorstep as soon as they’re offloaded from a factory in a third world country. I recalled seeing in storage a few sheets of tags, but no, those were the ones you use to seal Christmas cards. Those are necessary because we no longer affix our seals using wax. Or we don’t trust the postal service with our incredibly valuable Christmas cards. Putting those stickers on is an extra layer of security, like keeping your bank card’s PIN number written out and stored in a side compartment of your wallet.
For years, we were instructed to “save the boxes”, much as we stockpiled bows. We’d be careful not to tear the sides. In our household growing up, my mother had a special spot in the attic where the boxes were carefully sorted by size and condition. She didn’t like to venture into the attic, so it usually fell to us to do it. Even then, I was the organizer, so it was my responsibility to make sure everything was ship-shape, box-wise. When my parents sold the house and moved, we threw them all out, much to my mother’s anguish. In later years, Her Ladyship and I kept a goodly supply in the basement because we had no accessible attic here in the condo. I can tell you from experience that boxes in a musty basement don’t age particularly well. During a major clean-out a few years back, the entire collection went into the recycling bin, so now we buy them fresh and clean.
My brother took an interesting approach to wrapping Christmas presents. He favored a more casual, non-traditional look. Newspapers and brown paper bags often formed the skeleton of the wrapping. Embellishments included pine cones, dead leaves and branches, stray bits of bark, sprigs of holly clipped from nearby bushes, herbs well past their expiration date. There was virtually no sense of urgency about collecting and building an inventory. Most of his decorative accents were close at hand – in fact, I would image how contestants on “Survivor” would wrap presents for each other were they still on the island over the holidays.
So, while we wait for the inevitable – putting wreaths on the doors, dragging out the boxes of decorations, hauling the tree up from the basement, Her Ladyship enthroned at the dining room table – her temporary wrapping station, we at least can relax, secure in the knowledge that we have a detailed account of what’s needed for the presents. The gifts themselves are arriving daily. I know because Herself gives me regular alerts. “Two packages are being delivered today.” That means, I have to check the front porch, the back door, sometimes in front of the garage. I thank the delivery people for the whimsy they inflict on me. Or, they’ll be in package boxes in the mail house. We’re missing two from yesterday, so that’s where they must be. The next stage, after securing the wrappings, is to “hide” the gifts. Most are in our bedroom closets, so you can’t actually see or get to the clothes, but no matter. In past years, we had large plastic storage containers into which we’d put them. The bedroom took on a certain warehouse feel. Then we used the containers for other things, and never bothered to replace them, so everything is stuffed into any available space – the linen closet, the laundry area, bedroom closets, the Princess’s boudoir. Many are cleverly concealed in the Amazon boxes that we’ve kept, with the instruction, “That’s a really good box – save it.” I have, along with dozens of its kith and kin.
So, as you begin the inventory process, good luck. You may even come across the Christmas cards you bought a decade ago, put away carefully, and now they stand ready for service. Get your orders ready for three bags of bows, two or three packages of assorted boxes, and four dozen gift bags because, well, they’re so much easier. Let the holiday fun begin!!
I'm Thinking...No! 