Wrapping Paper Shortage

Yesterday we received a box of Christmas gifts from a far away friend.  I love getting to extend the holidays into the New Year!  These presents had to travel partway across several continents as well as an ocean so I don't really count them as belated.  They seemed to have had quite the journey.  The box looked like it had participated in a game of rugby on the way here.  Thanks to superior packing skills, the gifts themselves arrived unscathed.  Yay!

The kids came home from school at different times and opened their presents separately.  Later, they were discussing their gifts when this apparently important question arose:

"What kind of wrapping paper did yours have?"  

"It was the same as yours.  They all had the same paper."  

"Oh." Heavy pause  "Maybe she was having a wrapping paper shortage."  My little guy sounded so sincere.  Empathetic.  You could hear a twinge of sadness in his voice.  It was as if he wanted to go out and buy rolls and rolls of gift wrap for our friend so she would never have to wrap two packages in the same paper ever again.

I had to sheepishly interrupt their conversation and admit to them that not everyone is oddly obsessed with wrapping gifts.  In general, folks don't feel the need adorn all their packages with sleigh bells and ornaments and cookie cutters and yarn and hand-cut tags and notes, and make sure that each one is unique and seriously spend way too much time wrapping gifts.  (You can see a few in this post where I was just getting started.  Don't judge.  Fine, judge.)  I never thought the kids noticed.  I assumed they were too busy ripping open their presents to take in the wrapping.

"Oh.  I thought that's how presents were supposed to be wrapped."  

 File this one under "Another way my mom caused me to have a skewed perception of the world."  

There are no rolls of wrapping paper pictured because we actually are having a wrapping paper shortage here.  Ah, the irony.