I'm keeping my brilliant gift ideas under wraps
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, November 25, 2004

Tomorrow, as the malls fill to overflowing with bargain-hunting gift buyers, I'll be sitting with my feet up, chuckling to myself. You see, I've long known what I'll be giving as gifts this year (and for many, many years to come): wrapping paper.
     Earlier this year my children's school held its annual wrapping-paper fund-raiser, and because so many other schools also hold wrapping-paper drives, my friends and co-workers and I decided to call a truce.
     Meaning: I don't try to sell you five rolls of Lively Ladybugs paper and three rolls of curling ribbon, and you don't try to sell me five rolls of Lively Ladybugs paper and three rolls of curling ribbon, and everyone's happy (or at least equally unhappy).
     Also meaning: I had to buy something like 20 rolls of Lively Ladybugs paper and miles of curling ribbon myself.
     Now what? Do I expand my gift list? Flood my basement in hopes the paper and ribbon will be tragically lost? Start giving the paper itself as presents - wrapped in other paper, of course? Imagine their surprise when their gift, wrapped in Lively Ladybugs paper is . . . a roll of Lively Ladybugs paper.
     Not that I'm even capable of wrapping a roll of paper. Anything more challenging than a box is beyond me. Actually, boxes, too. I always end up with a little space bulging out on the side. And if the present is something irregular such as a Mr. Potato Head, forget it. The one I wrapped last year looked like a crudely constructed bomb when I was done with it.
     On Monday morning my Lively Ladybugs paper and ribbon bounty appeared in my younger son's cubby. I hoisted the box onto a handcart I'd brought to avoid lower-back injury, and was wheeling it out, when I encountered another mother who was strangely unencumbered.
     How dare she withstand peer pressure?This woman was empty-handed. Well, I must have given her a look, because all of a sudden she grabbed my arm.
     ``I swear I've got 50 rolls in my basement leftover from past years,'' she blurted. ``How much wrapping paper can one woman buy?''
     How much? Well, a lot. Sales of wrapping paper increased 5.1 percent last year, according to Business Trend Analysts, a New York market research firm, to about $10 billion - that's up from a 4.7 percent growth rate in past years.
     (One shudders to think how many rolls of Lively Ladybugs $10 billion works out to.)
     Meanwhile, if there's one silver lining to the rolls lying in wait for me at home, it's this: I also bought a lot of ``frosted totes.''
     Each of those should be able to hold at least five rolls of paper. A little curling ribbon around each roll, and I'm all set.
     Happy holidays, indeed!