Crappy Wrap and Other Christmas Favorites

I remember being at my mother's house with my brother and sister. Mom and my sister were busy packing for the trip to Houston to spend Christmas with our grandparents, so Mom assigned my brother and me to the "festive" task of wrapping presents. Neither of us had the first idea of how to wrap presents, so we decided to make the task more enjoyable by singing Christmas songs. We started out with the Twelve Days of Christmas, but the words to the song quickly changed from the traditional song we all know so well to something rather rude and bordering on vulgar. Now in our defense, we were only 21 and 18 and we were not above a little bathroom humor. I'll spare you the details, but it was an experience that has lasted these past 12 years. My brother died in a car accident a little over a year later, leaving our family devastated. After all these years, I always smile when I think of our Crappy Wrap song and how much fun we had laughing with Mom and our sister until our sides hurt. There are probably millions of songs out there, but Crappy Wrap is still one of the best songs ever "written."
With how commercialized Christmas has become, it is so hard to remember that this is a time of celebration, not stress over buying presents and having the next coolest thing on the market. Ben, Kevin, and Rapunzel are no exception. I do not know how many things they have told me that they just have to get for Christmas. How did we let them become so superficial and materialistic? Where is the simplicity of Crappy Wrap and making the time together fun just because we are together? So this year we have decided that we are not spending a ton of money on a bunch of toys that will get scattered throughout the house or sit in a box on a shelf. Instead, we have gotten the children one present each. Sure, other family members will give the children presents, but they are only getting one each from us. Instead, we are using the rest of our Christmas money to spend time with the people who mean the most to us. Our presents will be wrapped all nice and pretty (I learned how to wrap presents correctly while working at Dillard's), but we will have a Crappy Wrap Christmas this year!