Save the boxes!

I believe my love of purdy paper came from my earliest excitement over brightly wrapped gifts, and a family tradition of wrapping gifts together.
I am one of five children, the fourth girl, followed by the one and only boy. My Mom is a perfectionist, an artist, and ultimately very practical.
Every year at Christmas she found herself surrounded by gifts needing to be wrapped and a house full of girls climbing the walls with excitement over the holidays.
So she started the Thanksgiving night of gift wrapping.
After we had eaten our fill of turkey, cleaned the kitchen and taken naps we were anxious for something to do. So she brought out our Christmas gifts, all packed in boxes labeled with a name on it, and had us start wrapping them.
I thought the process of wrapping gifts was sheer bliss. Sometimes I even got to pick out the paper and wrap my own present without even knowing what was inside.
We developed something of a system. The expensive foil paper was saved for the tiny gifts so it would go further. The unattractive paper was wrapped around big gifts, in hopes of getting rid of it quickly.
Mom taught us the proper gift wrapping corners. We did it correctly, or we ended up holding the paper while someone else did the taping. You can see this perfection on my scrapbook pages, even now.
You can see this pecking order for the prettiest scrapping paper, too. I horde the expensive, patterned paper for my “special” photos and use paper from Provo Craft Slab on my snapshot and events pages.
Another carry-over from the Christmas gift wrapping tradition is I never throw away a “good box.” Neither does anyone else in my family. Thus when we get a gift from my sister wrapped in a Schwan’s “bagel dog” box we know (a) it isn’t bagel dogs, and (b) I will be saving the box to send something to my brother in it next year.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this tradition is seeing how a simple decision on my Mother’s part to expedite the chore of wrapping gifts has sent a ripple effect through my life.
Now, every year when the family gets together for Thanksgiving someone brings a craft we can do together. One year my niece introduced us all to soap making. I loved it, and everyone in my circle of friends received hand-made soap for the holidays that year.
Another year my school teacher husband showed the children how to “mummify Barbie dolls.” It was an odd craft, but the kids loved it.
We have learned origami, painted Christmas tree ornaments, and made picture books for a church humanitarian project.
Since I have decided to add a line about gratitude each day in my November blog, today I am grateful for my family tradition of gathering together to make something beautiful. This tradition has enriched my life beyond all understanding.