It's A Wrap

Xmas is almost upon us. It seems to have crept up on me this year and it’s very disconcerting.  A couple of weeks ago it was November and everything was under control and now – we’ve only got a few days to go before old Papa Noel climbs down the chimney and finds himself locked inside the wood burner.

Luckily I had a few spare hours in London on Monday morning (thank you BA for getting me there early) and so the normal panic buying of presents which will be unloved and unused, was something of a doddle this year. All I had to do was wander into Waitrose and buy J all the things she craves –  cakes, biscuits and anything covered in chocolate. They tend to be regular shapes too which makes the wrapping of them a little easier – more on this later. And joy of joys, when I got back to rainy old France the job I really hate had been completed – the tree had been  bought and decorated. Great!

There are jobs I don’t mind doing at Xmas and then there’s jobs I hate. I cant really think of any jobs I ‘love’ but putting the tree up definitely falls into the ‘hate’ category. Strangely, I don’t mind taking the tree down after Xmas – weird eh? I don’t mind doing the outside lights either but as that needs ladders, hammers and nails, if I didn’t do it, the exterior of the house would remain dark and dull and not very festive. I also don’t mind doing all the cooking on Xmas day – maybe that’s a man thing. However, almost falling into the ‘hate-tree’ category comes the wrapping of presents. I detest it. I generally leave it to the last minute and then frantically throw some fancy paper round whatever it is that I’ve bought and try and hide it under the other presents under the tree. That’s all well and good until the actual recipient picks up the package, looks at the attempt at wrapping, works out that it was me and then hastily rips off the paper and this is the rub. I spend money on wrapping paper. I spend hours wrapping the presents up using rolls and rolls of sellotape in the process and then the paper is ceremoniously ripped off and thrown on the floor in a matter of seconds. Why bother wrapping?

In France they have a lovely little bit of the buying process. Virtually no matter what it is that you’re purchasing, you just say, ‘Cadeau’ and immediately it is gift wrapped for you with little bows and ribbons. And it’s free. It’s great. Unfortunately, Waitrose had never heard of this little bit of customer service and so J’s choccie biscuits will have to be wrapped by yours truly. Similarly, her bin-bag liners which are a horrible, tubular shape will be wrapped in some sort of amateurish manner as will her wooden spoons. Why wooden spoons? Well, throughout the year they split, get burned or just get all yucky with solidified porridge so they need replacing. This is called thoughtful present buying….but I digress slightly and if J reads this blog she’ll work out what she’s getting this year.

But, in London, I hear somebody in one of the big stores had one of those inspired moments of thought. They would offer a Xmas present wrapping service but they would do it in a less than perfect way so that it looked just like…….a man did it! Male shoppers could then put these presents under their tree and it looked for all the world like they had wrapped them. Brilliant.