Tomorrow we celebrate Jakes b-day. My hubby and I got him some cool gifts. Yay! Fun!Today I sent my youngest to get some gift wrapping. "How much do you need?,"I askedThen I realized that I was shelling out money (and I'm not cheap) for something that will be ripped up in about five seconds and then discarded. What a waste! Especially since Jake is not going to remember the cute blue dog wrapping when he is grown up. He'll probablyremember the gift but seriously now. It cost how much for wrapping four or five bucks? Then there's the cute bow, then the cute bag to put the cute gift wrapped in the cute paper that will go unnoticed by the cute kid. The total will probably be somewhere like seven to ten bucks. Ten bucks can feed some people in some third world country. I hate that phrase "third world" but I digress. Jake is not going to dress himself with the wrapping paper. He will not use it for shelter and he will not be nourished by it. What I'm trying to say is that he doesn't need the wrapping paper. It's a luxury, more for the grown ups than the child. The child just cares about what's under the wrapping. Gift wrapping is a waste. I have gone to plenty of parties and people ooh and ah about wrapping. The gift wrapping industry must be a money making machine and whoever came up with the whole colored ribbon held together with a staple is a genius and set for life ,he or she along with his/her families...generations unless we can come up with something better. I am not Silas Marner,(famous cheapskate) I will go all out forwrapping on Christmas because nothing says Christmas like shiny red, green,silver and gold wrapping. Ha! I didn't have much growing up and when I had my first child, there was no baby shower or fuss. I remember getting a gift for my first born and it was the cutest outfit wrapped in the most precious paper. Cherubs all over the place, cute dimply plump ones,simply adorable. I was so touched that someone outside of my hubby and I acknowledged my baby and wanted to express their joy in her birth by giving a gift to my baby girl. And took the time to search for an outfit for her and then search for the perfect wrapping that I cut a piece of the wrapping out and saved it. I still have it. Really I do. I save all my gift bags. After saying "thank you" for my gift I always say something about the wrapping sometimes even before I open the gift I'll tell the giver of the gift that they will probably see the bag again because I will reuse it and I have a closet filled with gift bags. Some are so cute and generic I use them as lunch bags or leftover bags for when Sofi or Debbie come over and take some food home with them. I used to meticulously unwrap gifts so that I could save the wrapping but many around me would grew impatient with my frugalness (is that a word?) When did the whole gift wrapping thing start anyway? I have searched the internet for the answer to that question and have come up with nothing and I am a good internet researcher so if you know the answer, please share. Am I being too cheap? Am I getting to old? Am I being ridiculous because I haven't slept since the day before yesterday?Im not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.