Old Fashioned Christmas, MONEY HONEY!

We made a deal with GRANDson Gavin. When he spends the night on the weekend... he wraps the presents, carries them down to the family room and we give him $20 when the job is complete.  He was wanting to make some money so he can buy his Mom and Dad a present, isn't that nice? He jumped at the chance thinking that wrapping presents is an easy $20!

Saturday morning we went upstairs to the guest bedroom and tackled the job. On top of the bed was a mound of presents that I had been gathering up for the last 4 weeks. It took at least 10 minutes of moving things until there even was a place to wrap! But he was willing and cheerful and I KNEW I had made a wise decision to contract his services.

First off he tells me he doesn't know how to wrap. I give him a quick cut, fold and tape lesson and we are off to a good start! The first presents were large, in fact too large to fit into the bags made for hard-to-wrap presents. He tore off a huge section of paper, much to big but he's trying so I don't say anything. I dispense the tape and he overlaps, folds and struggles with the enormity of the present. When he's finished it kind of looks like that UPS package that's been mis-handled!

Package 2 looks a little better, except he had to tear a new sheet of paper since he cut it too short. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Package 3 is long and one end is larger than the other. You know the kind, the square paper won't cover the big end and the small end has enough left over to wrap 10 presents. He uses the most tape on this one, it reminded me a little of a wrestling match I saw once!

Present after present, he's slowly improving and by now the stack of presents in the hall is so big that he decides to make a few trips down to the tree in the family room. Like a pack mule he loads up with as many presents as he can hold and down the stairs he goes...thump, thump, thump. In a few minutes he's back huffing and puffing. That was Trip 1.

Trip 2 he loads his arms and I tell him to place the gifts in order under the tree... all of his Mom's together, all of his Dad's, all of his brother's, all of mine, all of Papa's. Thump, thump, thump down the stairs...then thump, thump, thump he's back. I see a little bead of sweat now on the tip of his nose!

Trip 3 was riddled with a few, "This is hard Nana" and "How many MORE trips?"

We still have a lot more to wrap, he's earning his money the old fashioned way with hard work!