This time of the year is stressful enough what with the last-minute shopping and needing to be four places in one day.

But at our house the act of getting the gifts wrapped would rank pretty high on the Holmes and Rahe stress scale.

Not All Paper Is Created Equally

Because Tammy had done most of the shopping this year, I decided to try and help get everything wrapped.

But as it turns out I shouldn’t be using all of the stuff in the wrapping paper container.

Tammy: That’s not Christmas wrapping paper.
Me: I don’t think they are going to care when the kids open them.
Tammy: Yeah, but I care. Now I’m not going to have any paper when I need to wrap birthday presents.
Me: How many birthday presents did you wrap last year?
Tammy: I want to throw something at your head so hard right now.

There also seemed to be some sort of paper hierarchy that I found out about when I tried to wrap a gift in something Tammy didn’t consider the “good paper.”

So a little while later I decided to use some of that paper when Tammy told me to wrap one of Grace’s presents.

Me: I’m giving her [Grace] the ugly paper.
Tammy: Sigh (very loudly)…
Me: What? You don’t want me to do that?
Tammy: Not really.

He Gets An A for Effort

At least they'll know he wrapped it himself.

Jake had found a spot in the floor to wrap the presents he had bought.

His first attempt was pretty bad.

In fact it was so bad that Tammy referenced it a few minutes later.

She had helped Jake wrap one of his gifts when she held it up.

Tammy: Great, I just “Jake’d” this gift. Well, this will definitely look like it came from Jake.

Jake was discouraged but he didn’t let it get it him down as he kept plugging away. It wasn’t long before he proudly held up one he had just finished.

Jake: How’s this wrapping job?
Me: See, he’s getting better. He just had to get warmed up.

All of the wrapping finally started catching up to Jake and he started reverting back to his old form.

Tammy: Really Jake? You don’t even want to use scissors anymore so you’re just tearing it?

One of Jake’s high-tape wrappings.

Jake: I did use the scissors.
Tammy: I just saw you tear it.
Jake: Yeah, because I cut it but it didn’t cut all the way.

He went into his room to wrap some presents for Tammy and me and a little later he came out of his room holding up his latest attempt.

Jake: This one got a little messy.

Barely Holding Things Together

No tape dispenser? No problem.

It wasn’t long before I heard Tammy ask if we had anymore tape.

I knew we had at least 4 tape dispensers and I couldn’t believe that we had gone through that much tape.

But, as evidenced by the pictures, Jake’s tape-to-paper ratio is rather high which means it didn’t take long for him to burn through a roll.

I had a couple of rolls that wouldn’t fit on the dispensers so it was difficult and time-consuming to get a piece off. It didn’t take long for me to find something to help speed up the process of getting a piece of tape.

Tammy was reluctant to use it at first but once she saw how effective it was she had no problems using it.

Tammy: I’m wasting more time because we don’t have tape.
Me: You should use my handy-dandy tape dispenser.

Lets Go Caroling!

Toward then end of the wrapping festivities Jake starting singing “White Christmas.”

Jake: Hey Mom, what’s your favorite Christmas song?
Tammy: I saw Santa kissing… Wait…
Jake: Saw Momma kissing Santa Claus?
Tammy: Oh yeah. Underneath the Christmas tree last night… Or something like that.
Jake: The mistletoe?
Tammy: Oh yeah.

Obviously Tammy won’t be leading songs in front of the fire later tonight we head to her sister’s house.

The Fat Man with the bag comes tonight (thanks to fellow blogger Tinkerbelle for that one) so everyone be safe tonight so you can see what he brings you.