The Wrapping Paper Story

I have always loved to wrap Christmas presents. I've probably been helping, and then eventually doing all the wrapping since I was in first grade. I would wrap every body's presents for my mom and now I like wrapping the gifts better than I like picking them out for people. I spend so much time picking out the paper and the bows that I want to put on them... and that is how I spent most of my Saturday evening, wrapping presents.


All the presents, ready to be packed up and taken back to St. Leon and Guilford. I just hope the bows stay in tact on the trip!

Wrapping paper was actually the demise of Santa Claus for me. I think I believed in Santa longer than most people did, but there was one year when Mom must have only bought one style of paper.

It was Christmas morning, Jill woke me up by ringing this ridiculous bell that we had and we went out to the living room to open the gifts. The cookies were gone and the milk had been finished off as well and there sat all of our presents... IN THE SAME PAPER THAT I HELPED WRAP EVERYONE ELSE'S GIFTS IN! I still remember asking my mom, "Why does Santa have the same paper we do?" and I can still see mom sitting there, I think she was a little surprised and I don't really remember what she said, I just remember thinking, "This Santa character is really just a character."

The next year Christmas was just as great as normal. We still had Christmas Eve at Great Grandma Hornbach's house, Jill still woke me up with the bell at some god-awful time in the morning, and we still spent the day playing with our toys, trying on our new clothes, and spending time with our cousins at Grandma Horstman's house.

I knew there was no Santa, but that's still who our gifts came from that year(wrapped in the same paper as the gifts for our grandmas). And to this day our presents are still from Santa. This year I am so excited to spend Christmas morning with the family, especially Dillon who will really think his gifts came from Santa... as long as Grandma doesn't make the same mistake with the wrapping paper!