The Not-So-Secret Society of The Reproducing Wrapping Paper

 

                Last week, I watched one of those PBS specials where Suze Orman tells an audience of people who mostly already adhere to her books what to do with their retirement planning.  At this point, most of the debt is under control for me, and we have started investing and saving in earnest, so I was now watching it for all the other advice, about estate planning, insurance needs, and so forth. 

                I suppose at this point, it's time to do some real planning for our estate.  It will be a pretty simple will and trust situation, so I imagine that if I get on this, it shouldn't take too long to do.  Both sets of our parents did all of this again a few years ago.  It's pretty straightforward, as neither of our families are fraught with drama or anything like that.  My mother has implied that it's basically what we'd expect.  What my siblings and I joke about is whether or not she has added a codicil to the will concerning the reproducing wrapping paper.

                Back when my parents were newly married, my father's mother worked in a department store, sometimes at the gift wrap counter.  When the counter management decided to switch out the wrapping paper designs, she scored a couple rolls for Mom and Dad.  One was a gold Greek key design, and the other was red, green, and silver snowflakes.  They didn't have much, so they were happy to have the paper, and started to use it. 

                Fast forward about five decades.  Mom still has these two rolls of wrapping paper.  We have not been sparing of this stuff--every big gift has been disguised with it.  Classroom doors.  Bulletin boards.  Hallways.  Dad has wrapped gifts for all the officers in his groups in it (Greek key with curling ribbon in the organization's signature color?  Perfection for all those Masonic groups!).  Mom has always been a big proponent of saving the wrapping paper and using it again, but she didn't really do that with the reproducing wrapping paper.

                Mom swears that all this hard use is finally making a dent in the wrapping paper rolls.  We're pretty sure that one of us is getting the rolls in the will, because the rolls easily have another several decades in them.  She seems a bit offended when we joke about this wrapping paper, but I think it's one of the things that make our family smile as a group.  There's always a couple presents in the Christmas package in the reproducing wrapping paper, and we all know that a little part of our family history is under our tree.  It has outlasted every house we've had together.  It's outlived our father, and it has followed us as we've created our own homes. 

                It's funny how a couple leftover rolls of paper from a now-defunct department store has now connected three generations of our family.  My children never had a chance of meeting my paternal grandmother, but every year, they receive gifts wrapped in her thoughts for her son and his bride.  We are never all together at Christmas, but we all see the paper there in each other's pictures, and we know that we are still together in our way.

                We are wacky and frugal and believe in using what we have, and we are us.  You won't always get the newest and the shiniest things from us, but know this:  if you ever receive a present from us wrapped in fifty-year-old paper decorated with gold Greek keys or red, green, and silver snowflakes, you are in the club.