On the Fourth Day of a Feminine Christmas

Abandon all notions of what traditional Christmas present wrappings should be!  Take your queue from Bette Davis whose packages are tied up in bright colors with shiny papers, the very antithesis of brown craft paper and string (a look I also love and have used in the past).

A few years ago, an image crossed my path with packages done as vivid and beautiful as Bette’s.  But finding similar wrappings proved problematic – there didn’t seem to be much of the deep teal and magenta papers that I required for my new Christmas tableau.  That’s when I decided to collect wrapping paper all year long instead of just during the holiday season and soon amassed a collection of silvery glass-like wraps from June’s wedding selections and found fuchsia and deep magenta ribbons in the wrinkle racks after Valentine’s Day.

Alas, my bright offerings lasted only a year or two and now I’ve returned to more traditional packaging.  Afterall, when does red and green go so well together if not at Christmas?  I liken my foray into a more dazzling and luminous holiday to buying a pink Christmas tree – initially very novel and exciting only to discover later that pastel aluminum trees look best in department stores and not in a living breathing Christmas house…

Now I am back to tumbling snowmen with green plaid scarves, and repeating red Santa’s on my Christmas wraps. But it was fun while it lasted and I’m so glad that I once took Bette’s lead…