Wrapped and Ready

Well July 25th was quite successful.  We started the day with a little Christmas breakfast

Ham and cheese quiche and some blueberry muffins from Publix.  I prepped everything for the quiche the night before and got up about an hour before everyone and popped them in the oven.

Then I got all the fixins in the slowcooker for our traditional chili.  Fortunately, our baker was on duty and she made about 6 sour dough loaves to contribute to the day.

We pulled out all the tables, the supplies and got busy

QVC was kind enough to be selling Christmas stuff all day so we tuned in......and only ordered a few things.

By five o'clock we had wrapped about 200 presents

This year was a little different.  I always do 12 days of Christmas for my daughter and her college roommates.  Usually it is a fun little treat for them all because they are leading up to finals and who doesn't need a present to open every day leading up to finals.  But the college has decided finals will be over when they come home for Thanksgiving.  There are 4 girls so I normally wrap 4 of the same items in one box, but this year I wrapped each girl's items individually.  They will each take all 12 of their presents home with them and they can zoom or Facetime to open them.   Anyone else already planning on virtual Christmas celebrations.......yeah, we are hoping not but planning just in case.

I always get a lot of questions about storage of all these wrapped presents.  Here's how we make that a success

1) tiny packages all go in a storage bin with a lid for easy storage

2) Use quality boxes.  Good quality boxes will stack nicely and not cave in or smush

3) Carefully stack the packages from heaviest to lightest

4) Stack in a Jenga fashion.  You all know the Jenga game, right? 

Well that is exactly how I stack the boxes.  One layer going one direction, the next layer turned in the opposite direction. 

5) I have one closet in my house that is truly the gift closet.  All my gift wrap supplies are here.  I have talked about my Elfa organizing system before.

All the gifts I buy through the year are stored here as they wait to be wrapped.  Once wrapped they go right back into the same closet.

When it is time to put up the trees, we will pull out the presents, put on ribbons and embellishments and we are ready to go!

Thanks to you all for sending me sweet Merry Christmas messages on Saturday and all the nice comments.  Nothing makes Christmas better than enjoying it with friends!!!

Wishing you a great week!