Rebuilding Rob

In the Superman mythos, The Big Blue Boy Scout’s one sure-fire weakness is kryptonite. For those who don’t know, kryptonite is a radioactive meteor rock; the remains from his home planet Krypton. The radiation emitted from kryptonite will kill Superman and other Kryptonians – assuming there were any others left. Of course Superman is rendered powerless under a red sun, and totally vulnerable to magic, but that’s beside the point.

Everybody has their weakness, their Kryptonite, if you will. When it comes to the holidays, any gift-giving holidays for that matter, my kryptonite is wrapping presents.

To put it bluntly, I suck at wrapping presents. In fact, if my gift wrapping ability merely “sucked“ that would be an improvement from where I’m at.

Actually, let me walk that back. When I start wrapping multiple presents around Christmas time, the first few usually look awful. Usually, by the time I get to the last few gifts, I have finally figured out how to measure out the paper fold it properly and make sure that I have enough-but-not-too-much paper on the box. It just takes me a few hours to get warmed up, I guess.

Gift wrapping is my holiday kryptonite. I have never been very good at math, architecture – or anything involving symmetry for that matter. I think I have a hard time measuring things out, counting things off and making things balanced. It’s bad enough that sometimes I worry that it could actually ruin the holidays, particularly with children. It’s hard to seek the magic of Santa and his elves to children when their gift look like a blind , thumbless four-year-old wrapped their presents.

Back when I was a young pup, department stores still offered gift wrapping services. At one point, I believe it was a complementary feature. Then it was done for donations. And then it was a service for which they charged money, For the last decade or so, got boxes are no longer even provided when shopping around the holidays. If you want gift boxes and paper now, you pay form them. Today, if I order something from Amazon, I’ll splurge a few extra bucks to get a gift wrapped.

What is your holiday kryptonite?

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Teacher Armor and the Saturday Clearing
• The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
• The Muscle of Empathy

The article “My Gift-Giving Kryptonite” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.