christmas preparations

Christmas is my favorite. I have a huge family and love planning presents, even though luckily we do a Secret Santa for the cousins to keep things under control. Usually from Thanksgiving (or before) I make lots of lists and debate present ideas for people. This doesn't keep me from never having a good present for my brother until the 20th (this year: Jay-Z's latest, in honor of the CD we frequently listened to in high school. This year, I was gone basically from Thanksgiving to Christmas and didn't have as much time to plan. I found some great presents in Copenhagen but still, my lack of planning made me feel not-to-Christmas-y upon my arrival back in the US. So on one of my two nights in Richmond before going to my grandmother's, I decided to wrap my presents. Usually, this is done on my grandmother's ping-pong table that is commandered and turned into an elves' wrapping station the week before Christmas so that everyone's presents are wrapped in variations of the same 4 rolls of paper and the bags that are re-used from year to year. While this makes me smile, I wanted to get myself in the Christmas-y mood. So I scavenged my house for wrapping materials, and this is what I came up with.


I used old trace paper as tissue, both in a bag and to wrap up my dad's present. I spray painted some Christmas tins that I picked up a while back at a garage sale to be festive but less cute-sy for my grandmother and mom (decorated with an ornament from Tivoli Gardens) as well as one I spray painted yellow for my cousin. I used twine as ribbon and tied on some hot chocolate sticks for a European style hot chocolate. For my little cousins, I had picked up some really cool NASA calendars, even though I wasn't supposed to give them presents. I figured a calendar that they were sharing wouldn't be too indulgent of me. I just wrapped some paper around them and tied it with really cool rope- perfect for 8 years olds. Afterwards, I felt so ready for Christmas!