The art of gift-giving

i dont know about you, but for me (and maybe its cause i was raised asian...with very highly japanese-influenced parents), but i love giving presents. its an art...it really is. its much more of a joy for me to go out and pick out the perfect present for someone and wrap it all up in pretty paper with a big ribbon on it and present it to them than it is to really receive presents for myself.

that being said...i miss gift wrapping here...most shops in France will gift wrap your purchase for free....which is nice and they do a pretty good job of making it look pretty nice (sephora does a phenomenal job). and plus it avoids any male attempts at wrapping a present....but i myself loooove to wrap presents and my sister loves it too. it was one of our favorite things to do when we were little....every time my mom would announce that she needed to wrap either bottle of wine or box of chocolates for so-and-so, we would clamor over who got to wrap it. and i remember our mom teaching us how to perfectly wrap a present and how to cut and fold the paper just so....it brought such wonderful childhood memories for us. and we loved it so much that being a professional gift-wrapper is one of my sister's alternate career choices in case med school doesnt work out (though she is in the middle of her fourth year of med school, so i guess we wont be seeing her in her dream job after all!).

anyway, since gift-wrapping is free here, you dont see many people going out to buy multi-packs of wrapping paper rolls and yards and yards of ribbon. its just not the culture and as a result, you can tell where the giver got the present when you receive it (usually the name of the store is stamped all over the paper) and for me, you just dont see the love that the person put into making the package look pretty. i remember giving sweaters and shirts to both the boy and his brother last christmas and i put all of it in nice shirt boxes (again, they dont give out shirt boxes here....even for a present..unless its a really really fancy shmancy store) with cute christmasy tissue paper before wrapping it all up. and the wrapping and the tissue paper surprised them more than the presents themselves....its just not the culture...even the boy's mom herself doesnt see the point in buying nice wrapping paper for the holidays...she prefers to use the free paper they give out from the supermarket (and yes, i've received presents the said free supermarket gift wrap). yes, its free and yes, buying wrapping paper isnt very ecological...but its the holidays!!!!