The last damned present has been wrapped.  I say it this way because I thought I had finished wrapping presents weeks ago, but my children and others in my life had different plans for me.  Remember, my right arm is still in a cast up to my collar bone (and I’m right handed), and I can’t sign my name to any legal document but apparently I can still gift wrap better than any one else in the family.  Iknow this because on Saturday my son and I went birthday and Christmas shopping for his wife.  He purchased about nine items and left them with me to wrap.  He didn’t even tell me which were birthday and which were Christmas.  I personally wasn’t overly worried.  If you leave things with me without instructions I just make up my own.  And you had better not complain if I put my precious one armed self to the task of doing something you could easily do yourself.  In fact a little thank you would be nice, or a gift.  I like purple roses and anything chocolate.

I blame myself for this crap.  The artist in me doesn’t like to put a mundane package under the tree.  I usually try to jazz them up with some candy canes, or florist’s picks.  I make my own bows.  I hate those stinking factory made self-adhesive destined to fall odd ugly star creations that come 50 to a bag for $2.50.  I buy ribbon and I tie and I curl, and I use a ton of tape and when I finish a package it is almost to pretty to open.  It probably takes me anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to wrap one package.  Everything has to be just right.  Then when we actually get all the kids home and get to celebrate Christmas they rip into those packages like a suicide bomber wiyh nothing to lose and a hunger for virgins and two seconds later all my work is torn into shreds on the floor and the vicious little bastards are off to another one.  My husband puts everything he gives me in gift bags unless they have free gift wrapping in the store.  I’m abused.

There are just some things that mean more to some people than others.  I don’t think it has ever occurred to my family that I am a gift wrapping superstar.  I’m just mom.  I do what I do.  I bake, I clean, I sew, I wrap. I bitch and I excel at pretty much all of it.  I make a lot of threats that I am going to go on strike, but I don’t want to have to clean up the mess when the strike is over or I finally give in (either of which would result in my having to clean up the mess).  I have always done it and it is assumed I always will with both hands tied behind my back if need be because I’m an effing super hero who can do just about anything.  Alas…a cape fits over a cast really well! 

When I am gone I hope that I am able to watch over my family from which ever dominion I find rest in.  I want to see this little pin heads get by on their own.  No one will be able to ever have a decent Halloween costume.  All my great-grandchildren will be wearing the nylon ones from Wal-Mart and their precious faces will be hidden in those oven masks I’ve despised for years.  No one will no how to make alot of their favorite dishes because they have never taken the time to learn.  Peaches and cream cheesecake will just be a talked about memory handed down from generation to generation.  Poor little chilrun ain’t ever gonna’ taste Emmy’s good cookin’ cause their parents were to lazy to take the time to ask me to teach them how.  No one will be able to recreate the retreating bunny butt that has been the easter bunny’s signature for 31 years and counting, and no one is going to know how to perfectly wrap a Christmas present, using just the right amount of paper so that you have enough, but not too much overlap.  They won’t understand that you can never use too much tape, and that nothing says I love you like a handmade bow (especially when you only have one hand). 

So all the damned presents are wrapped, until UPS or FedEx brings something someone else needs to have wrapped and they bring it to me and say “will you do it?  You do it better than me.”  And of course I will, because this is how I take care of my family.  It’s what I do…and I do it well. 

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