wrapped up in memories

Way back, around 1988, my extended family got together for what must have been our final big time Christmas gathering. I'm a bit foggy on dates and what happened which Christmas, but I think I'm remembering the year we took a rather cool photo of all of us together on my aunt and uncle's tennis court.

Anyway, we were all together. I was staying in my cousin's room along with another cousin and several Pharaohs hanging on the walls. At some point we did the gift thing, I suppose on Christmas Day. One aunt gave me a gift wrapped in just a strip of wrapping paper... from memory she'd run out of paper, but you never know - she was a non-conformist! I remember thinking it was all a bit weird, but today I may have upped the stakes in weird present wrapping.

I'm a bit of a recycling fanatic and have made quite a few things out of recycled material: sun shields from recycled tetra packs, bags from old felted jumpers. And there's a hundred more ideas where those ones come from.

Probably one of the earliest recycling things I ever did was reuse wrapping paper. Mum used to do it, until I grew too posh for it and spent packets of money on beautiful wrap. Then I grew my environmental conscience and went back to reusing. A bit of clever trimming, folding and bow tying goes a long way to making a beautiful looking gift out of old paper.

So today I was wrapping up some presents and hoping they don't look too crumpled. (The advantage of posting gifts I suppose, is that it's possible the crushed look developed in transport, rather than from being wrapped around something of a different shape. That is what I hope people think, although the old sticky tape tears might be a give away)... and I used the plastic wrap from a bunch of flowers Frank gave me. Like I said, a bit of ribbon makes a big difference - you can hardly tell where the paper's been before. Until you unwrap the present and find the florist sticker. Oh well.

So here's to my aunt who led the way in saving paper and going against the flow!