Creative Ideas for Christmas Gift Wrapping

Necessity can be the cause of wonderful original inventions of some things that end up being passed down as family traditions. Most of my suggestions come from that category. I come from a family where we could figure out what was in a gift just by knowing who the gift was for and by touching or sometimes just by looking at the package.

My mother had to buy very busy wrapping paper and hide our initials among the design. Also during Christmas our tools, magazines and chains disappeared because she wrapped them inside the gifts along with walnuts, paper towel rolls and anything else that would disguise the identity of the contents. Otherwise Christmas ended being a "I told you so" contest among us siblings.

The Treasure Hunt:

When I was a teen I'd requested some gifts that couldn't be wrapped. I mean, really couldn't be wrapped. I'd requested a Black moor Goldfish one year and a fern, the next. My mother came up with the treasure hunt where one of my tree gifts had a note with a hint in it. Which I followed to a location where I found another gift with a note leading me to another destination. I had to go all over the house finding gifts until I found the fish.

We continued this tradition with our son who also has the same gift of knowing what's in a gift. Plus this is a way to even out the gift count when one person has more gifts than another. Give them a treasure hunt. We started before our son could read. I'd draw picture cards of the locations with arrows pointing to the exact spots. As he got older the drawings gave way to written hints.

The Embedded or Disguised Gift:

One year I'd campaigned for a nice ring. My parents put it in small box with a note attached to it. Then they took several identical boxes and stuffed them with notes. They took all of the itsy bitsy boxes and stuffed them among wadded newspaper which they packed into a huge box. Which was then wrapped and put under the tree. This type of wrapping only works for a highly anticipated gift, otherwise the work of unwrapping could cause an even deeper disappointment. Years later, my son did the same thing for one of my gifts which was also a nice piece of jewelry. Except he took it one step further. He wrapped every single little box inside the big box.

Another method of embedding is nesting boxes within boxes like a puzzle. My mother did this, I've done this and so has my son. It's a very effective way of disguising the identity of the gift and adding to the fun. But again, the gift needs to be worth the suspense of the multiple unwrappings. You can either nest the inner boxes without
wrapping each individually or you can wrap each box before nesting it into the next and then wrapping each successive layer, as my son did. It depends upon how much suspense you want to put into the unwrapping.

The Package That isn't What it Seems:

This actually started out as a necessity. I just used what I had. I'd pack a gift in an unrelatedly labeled box. Then I saw that it helped with disguising the identity of the gift, adding to the suspense of unwrapping. Then I deliberately saved containers that I could use for such purposes. What these containers advertise in their
labeling needs to be equivalent to the quality of the gift. I discovered this the hard way when the gift I gave was expected to be much nicer than it was because of the outer container. A good example is my use of candy boxes or tins for a nice piece of clothing, slippers, DVD, game, fishing supplies or something else that has been
requested or desired

Unexpected Containers:

One year I decided to be a bit different and used a hat as the container, which I filled with the gift, stuffed with tissue paper and then wrapped with colorful cellophane. That made it a gift within a gift.

My foster-mother wrapped our gifts for our first Christmas, then put them all in a large Christmas stocking that her mother had made for us. I'd done something like that a year earlier. I'd made a five foot felt stocking and stuffed it with their gifts. Now when we're out on trips we've tried to find special stockings when we can and have filled them with some of our kid's gifts, wrapped in tissue paper.

My mother-in-law has used fancy little purses as the container and the wrapping for the gift.

I've used large shells to put the gift in, then either put them in a box and wrapped them in paper or in a gift bag with tissue.

The Theme Wrapping:

I collect theme related dolls. One year, my husband got me a Dorothy doll with Toto and her basket. That would have been special enough. However, he took the theme further by packing the wrapped doll inside a picnic basket. It definitely surprised me. I wasn't expecting the doll. The basket was a wonderful bonus since I also
collect and use baskets.

Another time, before I was married, a friend and I needed to each give a gift to another friend who was creative. We each got different parts to a project for her and put them in usable containers. One was a tin, another was a lidded basket. Then we wrapped them each in a length of fabric and finished them off with lace and ribbons. I've also used leather with leather laces, conchos, beads and feathers or pretty handkerchiefs/scarves or anything else that might lend itself to unusual gift wrapping. Plus, it's multiple layering of gift upon gift without any waste.

Fancy Gift Boxes:

I like to buy fancy boxes which are intended as a stand-alone gift, then filling them with other gifts and wrapping them in a gift bag with tissue to disguise their shape.

Some Suggested Sources:

These particular supplies are more available in-store, rather than on-line.

Walmart, Joann's, Michael's and Dollar Tree are good, reasonable sources for baskets, fabric, wrapping paper, yarn, leather, Christmas stockings, craft supplies, shipping boxes, gift boxes and tins.