Rappers delight....

So now the kids have gone (again) I have been able to see my way clear to get more prep work done for the impending festivities.

First job yesterday morning was to buy wrapping paper. Now, when you have four children, many rolls of wrapping paper are vital.  Every year, I calculate in my head how much paper I will need to wrap our gifts to the children and I buy accordingly.  I like to have different papers for the four children for no other reason than it appeals to my OCD.  The same goes for bows, ribbon and sticky tape. So by the beginning of December, I will be completely organised to wrap all the presents, which by then, should all be bought.  

The husband has already said that he'll do his bit for the Christmas preparations.  This involves transferring some money into my bank account, and then he's done. (Except for the tree, but that's another story which we will revisit in around three weeks).

It's around a week before Christmas that things start getting a little tricky.  The kids, who still consider themselves children rather than responsible adults (give me a minute to digest and discard this fact) start hovering around my Wrapping Station (sounds grand, but really just an old table in my office with a Sellotape dispenser).  One by one, they help themselves to MY paper and MY sellotape.  

The trouble is, there is always one last present which needs wrapping, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the particular  paper I need will amount to a three inch strip which won't become apparent until I pull it off the roll with a flourish.  This then leaves me with the dilemma of what to do.  Do I wrap the present in a different paper, thus destroying my sanity, or do I go and buy another roll?  It's not unknown for me to unwrap a large gift and trim some paper off so that I can use it on the last gift.  This one did look a bit like a twelve piece jigsaw though..

And don't even get me started on the husband,

He is a Christmas Eve shopper, bundling through the front door around 8.00pm looking like he's done a trolley dash without the trolley.

'Where's the wrapping paper?'  will be his first question as he ushers me away from the Wrapping Station.

Over the years, I have learned to have some back up paper, because on occasion I have had my presents wrapped in birthday paper, brown paper, clear cellophane (this was a bad year as I used this to wrap my Christmas puddings), a map of the world and foil.  If there was no Sellotape left, then duct tape, Blu-tak, masking tape and Araldite were good alternatives.

So this year, I have bought some lovely wrapping paper which I shall squirrel away until he needs it.  

For the first year ever, I too will have a lovely pile of gifts uniformly wrapped and bedecked in bows.

There'll even be enough Sellotape...


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