The differences in our two family’s wrapping philosophies recall our approaches to the recognition of birthdays and other special events. H’s family remains determined to celebrate all occasions, and inventive wrapping is a big part of the celebration. My parents continue to give thoughtful and lovely gifts. But they regard the birthdays of adults, as I’ve said before, as events best mentioned quietly, if at all. I grew up hearing the admonition: “Don’t get beside yourself.” In the eyes of my parents, showing too much enthusiasm is bit unseemly; it’s something to be avoided, or at least denied. H’s family, on the other hand, is happy to get beside themselves. During birthdays and on Christmas, they revel in it.

Now that I’m familiar with both approaches, I can appreciate the merits, and the drawbacks, of each.

This year my husband’s extreme wrapping scored especially high marks. He enclosed three gifts for our daughter in tubes used for forming concrete, 48 inches long and up to 16 inches in diameter. An inexpensive wrapping solution with a big wow factor. None of the objects were vaguely cylindrical in shape, of course. The first tube appeared by the tree early in the morning, three days before Christmas. On the following two days, another, successively larger, tube appeared.

Our daughter was merrily intrigued, and she responded in kind. She searched in the basement until she found a suitably unusual container for one last gift for her dad: a tall plastic laundry hamper. She took it to her room and, using two kinds of paper, an abundance of tape, and an uncharacteristically substantial degree of patience, performed a wrapping coup. The shape may perhaps best be described as an oval trapezoidal prism.

On Christmas morning, the tubes and the hamper were the final gifts unwrapped. Both H and D were exultant as they pulled off paper and worked their way to the gifts inside the strange packages. The excitement was catching. Not even my parents, who are here with us this Christmas as usual, were immune. I think I can speak for both sides of the family now when I say that once in a while, getting beside yourself is recommended.

The first two mystery tubes appear.

The three tubes, with one tiny tube on top.  My shoe-storage package is in front.

The oval trapezoidal prism.

Our house, as I’ve noted before, is closet-challenged.  It’s a four-square farmhouse built in 1920.  Closets and bathrooms were added during the early 1970s.  Orange shag carpeting was also installed in copious amounts at this time, one reason the house remained on the market for so long before we bought it ten years ago.  We have a wide center hall but no optimal storage on the first floor unless one counts the closets in a bathroom and in an office that doubles as a bedroom when overnight guests are plentiful.  Neither space is ideally located, to say the least.

For a family of three, we have an inordinate number of shoes, especially those for outdoor activities.  We have shoes for running, for gardening, for hiking, for use in snow, in rain, in rivers and oceans.  We have high boots, low boots and medium boots, most of which are typically caked with mud and leaf debris.  We have many pairs of old, scruffy shoes saved for the messiest of uses:  walking through mucky fields, exploring the creek, climbing trees, working in the garage or the basement, etc.  Some are very nearly too small or worn out but still may be of use in a pinch, if, say, all our other shoes were swept away in a tornado.  These are too shabby to be given away to any charitable organization, but too good, it seems, for outright disposal.  As H’s father would say, we have back-ups for our back-up shoes.  And then there are the comfy shoes, the legions of slippers, rarely worn.  They stay with us, it seems, out of habit and for the sake of occupying space.

Our  shoes tend to congregate in the kitchen around the back door and in the hall by the basement door.  Like so much household detritus, they evidently have the ability to multiply spontaneously.  Opening either door is impossible without first rearranging great piles of shoes.  I dislike this process as much as I dislike moving the little things off the kitchen table.

I’ve been complaining about our lack of shoe storage for nearly as long as we’ve lived here, to little avail.  I usually deal with it by stomping around angrily and muttering derogotory remarks about my beloved family members while hauling their shoes upstairs or downstairs.  This does not make me happy.

I finally realized that the problem might be solved by incorporating it into a gift request.  My husband and daughter take gift requests very seriously.  They excel at tracking down gifts (and they enjoy gift wrapping challenges, but that’s another story.)  Several years ago I began asking that the impatiens be planted as a Mother’s Day present.  Therefore, on Christmas morning, I opened a substantial package containing varieties of shoe storage:  hanging racks, standing racks, storage boxes with hinged lids, others that defy easy description.  On December 26, shoe storage solutions were installed and in use.  I was delighted.  Change had arrived.

H and D have adjusted swimmingly; their shoes are tucked away as intended.   The problem now seems to be that I can’t get used to the new system.  I keep leaving my shoes by the doors to the kitchen and basement.  I have received two tickets from the Home Improvement and Neatness Patrol for illegal shoe deposit.  I’m going to have to get with the program.  I can’t be responsible for the failure of shoe storage; I want that gift to keep on giving.

  My shoes, conspicuously all alone.  I resolve to do better!