In the lead up to Xmas last year, Kit and I decided we’d had enough of wrapping paper. Earlier, I had described the lifecycle of paper to Kit. He was horrified to discover human priorities where tree-use is concerned. First, we acknowledged the social importance of gift wrapping (absolutely imperative if you don’t wish to become a social outcast, according to Kit, who would much prefer to be a social incast). Apparently, much lower on the priority list is maintaining a sufficient number of trees to photosynthesize, thereby renewing our oxygen supply. The pervasive opinion seems to be that chopping down trees is of little consequence. Kit suggested that this was a trifle odd. Only he didn’t say that. He said something a trifle more descriptive.
So, there remained a problem. How could we save some trees whilst presenting our presents presentably? Kit and I decided to solve the problem. First, we set out to buy some Christmassy print fabric and ribbon. Kit was quite overwhelmed at the big store and got a bit overexcited. Thanks to my timely interruption of his antics, and apologies to the staff, he managed not to make any enemies (at least not permanently). I distracted him by asking him to ‘help’ me carry our supplies. His assistance made little difference to me. He may he have been carrying a spool of ribbon, but I was carrying him!
Once we got home, I unpacked the sewing machine, or ‘sewer’ as Kit calls it. I have never corrected him. It’s only the written word that poses a problem. Kit helped me measure out and cut the fabric. The print on the fabric was of platypuses in Xmas hats. At first he didn’t like the idea of cutting through any of the platypuses. Fortunately, I managed to talk him round, and left him cutting ribbon, while I got down to business sewing little gift bags.
A few hours later we had all we needed to wrap our Xmas presents. A dozen pretty gift bags that can be reused, and even washed and ironed to keep them fresh. Our sense of accomplishment was quickly followed by deflation as we realized we now had to actually do our Xmas shopping. But we’d had enough for one day. While I went to make dinner, Kit settled down with his coloured pencils to draw platypuses sawn in half with their innards hanging out.