It came without ribbons!... it came without tags!... it came without packages, boxes, or bags!

Perhaps I'm dating myself just a bit here with my "Grinch" quote... but I watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on "real" tv last night... not a dvr/dvd/bluray/etc... but the real live tv where you have to be in front of said tv at 8:00 sharp to not miss anything!  Remember those days?  I can remember waiting all year to watch all the holiday specials including The Grinch That Stole Christmas (and not the Jim Carrey version, gasp!).... so I'm feeling a bit sentimental today....

Growing up in a fairly small town, there was a fairly small "downtown".  One that had department stores... the kind that sold toys, fabric, books, shoes, clothes on different floors.  The picture below reminds me of our biggest store, The Bon Marche... it's first floor looked a bit like this and held the cosmetics department, women's shoes and menswear.  It was on a corner and had two big entrances.  I remember shopping there until it closed when our new mall was built in the late 80's and of course, then The Bon was taken over by Macy's....

But I digress, this is supposed to be about wrapping not my shopping or tv memories...

One thing I don't ever remember using was the gift wrapping services offered by a store.... I've always been a little fascinated by the movies where the folks go out shopping, not always at the holidays, and everything is boxed up for them... and wrapped... I always wondered who lived like that? No plastic shopping bags?  No paper bags overflowing... but shoppers actually walking down the street of some big city with their stack of packages....

Since I can't don't have that kind of life... and box up and wrap all my own packages... well perhaps I can at least have my own gift wrapping station!


Maybe you remember this little yellow number purchased for the wedding last summer?  A vintage drop leaf table I picked up for around $35...

I had painted it using ASCP in 3 colors... trying to show off a bit of the details.

And, if I must say so myself, it did look pretty fabulous at the wedding!

Well, like many of the items I acquired for the wedding, I wanted to use it somehow afterwards... I realized with the drop leaf sides down it would tuck nicely in to a little area upstairs... AND I could pretty it up with some gift wrapping (in appropriate colors of course) to be a little gift wrapping station of my own!

Since it's now the holidays I swapped out the everyday for some Christmas wrap... and a little ceramic tree!

I can pop up one of the leaves and wrap away!  I can stand or pull up a chair when I get tired... but I won't be kneeling on the floor or cluttering up the dining room table this year!

At least that's the plan!

So how... and where do YOU all wrap your gifts?

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