I have no idea what the origin of this idiom is, and Google has failed me so far, but the only way this idiom makes sense is to assume that at some point packages were, in fact, pretty.

And I mean, pretty pretty.  Thoughtful pretty.  Not thrown into a gift bag printed by someone else and tossed in with some tissue paper while in the front seat of the Walgreens parking lot 10 minutes before the occasion pretty.

Ahem.

LIKE YOU HAVEN’T DONE THAT.

To be honest, I think I started really noticing the packaging of things at the same time I started to be more thoughtful about the gifts I was giving.  This isn’t easy, thoughtfulness, but maybe that’s why I like pretty packaging — it’s visual thoughtfulness.

What a lovely idea.

I am by no means the best gift-wrapper-packager, but I just…loveitsomuch.  It’s on my life list (create beautiful things) and it appeals to the design side of my brain.

This was last Christmas for my family, with help from my graphic-designer husband:

I was just about to write “this takes no time at all”, to implore you to get right on your pretty-packaging way…except, it’s not true.  It doesn’t take a crazy amount of time, but truthfully — thoughtfulness in any manner takes time, but for me, this is time well spent.  That’s just what I like.

This was $3 wrapping paper from Walgreens (apparently Walgreens and I have some kind of weird cosmic giftwrap connection) with $1 mini-crayon boxes and a vintage coloring book picture scanned in and printed on cardstock.

Here’s Christmas for the boy last year:

Obviously this was wrapped in newspaper, tied with grey yarn and adorned with number tags that I found somewhere on the internet machine and printed out on cardstock that I bought at Office Depot.

I’m all kinds of fancy, yo.

I forget where I found the template for the tags, but if you google things like “gift tag template” you’ll find some interesting stuff.  If you don’t have time to wade through google-y piles of junk, though, just read blogs like Sally Shim’s and How About Orange, and they’ll hook you up with all sorts of great ideas and templates, respectively.

Here’s this year for the boy (and a little glimpse of our charlie brown tree):

And for the family, some lovely wrapping from the fine folks at Design Army at the Felt & Wire Shop:

with a little embellishment ala a free font that I cut out of other wrapping paper &
some grey yarn from my sister Amy

and turning paper into a little yarn-sewn envelope, which should be very easy
for my 5-year old niece to open

I couldn’t decide between their DoReMi & Wrap In Style collections, so I got both. And poking around that site made me very jealous for more, but I restrained myself.  Of course, I’ll repurpose a lot of the leftover wrapping paper throughout the year, which is the genius part of having Christmas paper that’s not too Christmas-y.

I could go on and on, but I have to go wrap presents now.

the overachieving section of my brain lamented my one B for about 15 minutes, and then the rest of me congratulated myself on being a 22 credit hour scholastic badass.

this semester is ovs.  o-v-e-r.

also?  i sold three of my books on amazon, including one that my school wouldn’t buy back, thus doubling the amount of money i would have gotten for my school to buy my books back, which is about less than a 1/4 of what i paid.   makes it a little less painful.

i am mid-christmas, as the charming boy and i had our christmas later, and my whole family’s christmas is tomorrow, complete with a very large dinner of prime rib.

now: finish putting new music on my niece’s new ipod nano, and feed the new piggy bank i got for christmas with all my loose change while cleaning the refugee camp that passes as my home.

later: christmas lights viewing with brother’s family.

tomorrow: more christmas goodness.

frohe Weihnachten, meine Lieblingsfreunde.

next up on my unconventional yet amazingly awesome christmas mixtape is Feist’s Lo, How a Rose Is Blooming. dreamy, wistful, perfect for watching the snow fall from a warm bed, like i did this morning.

it’s no donkey, but i like it.

i have to go write my 4th of 6 papers  now (turns out my take-home final is two essays.  damn).

[per request:

to play: hover your mouse over the link and a player should pop up and you can hit play. OR just click it and it will open up in a new tab and start playing.

to download, right click (for pc folks, macs you are on your own) and select "save link as" and direct it to where you want it to save.  you know, because i'm all giving and stuff.]

Death Cab for Cutie – Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)