On the Fourth Day of a Feminine Christmas

There’s a great scene in the film Desk Set when Katherine Hepburn invites Spencer Tracy into her female lair to escape a damaging rainstorm. It’s Christmastime and in her bedroom (where she hands over her current boyfriend’s monogrammed terry robe to Tracy) there is a small desk rife with bright Christmas papers, ribbons and all sorts of wrapping paraphernalia tumbling out of open drawers. It always leaves me wanting a dedicated Christmas wrapping space of my own. Mostly I wrap presents on the floor where I can never find the scissors or tape after I put them down (they are usually under my leg).

Over the years, I’ve run the gamut of various wrapping strategies. Sometimes I’m all about the traditional Christmas colors of red and green. Those years, I like to find Santa’s dotting my papers or green Christmas trees. One year, I tried plain brown butcher paper and accessorized with real greens from the yard. My favorite was the year I bought bright shiny jewel-toned papers – all different with equally bright but contrasting ribbons. My lustrous packages looked wonderful under the tree.

In recent years, I like to use velvet ribbons which can be bought inexpensively via Amazon. Rolls of different widths and colors are aplenty which I match to softly-hued papers. I especially like to use petal-pink with snow-white paper with sparkles. Anything but red and green for now.

I wish our image above was in color but I imagine her dress is forest green. She’s sitting at a table so she won’t find scissor imprints on her thigh or have the tape roll under the sofa just out of reach. I love that she’s dressed up for her holiday task and don’t her presents look festive and lovely? Lipstick…red. I’m sure of it.

Have you a wrapping strategy? Or does it really matter?