Elf Getting the Presents Ready

About this drawing

An elf wrapping presents is doing a job that barely existed a few centuries ago. In earlier times, Christmas gifts were often handed over plain or tied to the tree. Decorative wrapping took off in Victorian times, when middle-class families began making gift giving the centerpiece of the holiday and started using tissue paper, ribbon, and sealing wax.

Wrapping adds suspense, of course, but it also says something about the giver. A neatly tied bow shows that someone took time and care. As printing became cheaper in the early twentieth century, patterned papers with holly and pine trees filled department stores, and rolls of bright paper became a standard December purchase.

Plenty of cultures solved the problem differently. In Japan, furoshiki cloths have been folded and knotted around objects for ages, and the same square of fabric can be used again and again. That idea is catching on now that people worry about holiday trash. Not all wrapping paper is recyclable, especially when it is coated with foil, plastic, or glitter. A handy trick is the scrunch test: if a sheet stays crumpled in your fist, it can usually be recycled. Old maps, comic pages, and fabric scraps also look great under a tree, and a tidy elf would surely approve.

• elf
• presents
• wrapping paper
• bows