So it’s Christmas morning, and I am in my bed, just shaking off those visions of dancing sugarplums from last night, and I am ready for the day I wait for 364 days of the year: the day I get the motherload of loot. I run downstairs with family, all of us rubbing our eyes and stumbling around but nonetheless excited.

And what do I see?

A bedazzled tree surrounded by…

Boxes.

Covered in beautiful, shiny…

Paper.

But wait:

Some of them have…

Bows.

I don’t get wrapping paper. I just don’t. I do not comprehend why on every gift-giving occasion, we are required to shroud our presents in wrapping and tinsel. And I know what you’re thinking: but Kayla, it’s what makes it a gift. But Kayla, it’s fun.

No it is not.

It is me just breathing that sigh of relief that I have accomplished finding gifts for my loved ones before “oh, snap I have to swaddle the crud in wrapping paper and oh, snap I forgot wrapping paper.”

This is the type of situation in which a well-meaning gift giver must stoop to improvising: giving their loved one their Christmas gift enfolded in birthday wrapping paper, with the Happy Birthday’s haphazardly crossed out and replaced with Merry Christmas, all done up in impromptu origami; held down with about three miles of Scotch tape.

I’m not saying I’ve ever had to take such desperate measures, but tell me, what part of that sounds fun to you? What with the paper cuts, the tangled up tape, crumpled-up failed first tries. Not to mention all those trees that were killed. And for what? That five-minute moment of suspense before oh, honey, you shouldn’t have! It’s just what I wanted.

I don’t get wrapping paper.

We make so much of a fuss hiding presents and our family will inevitably receive them.

I’m not asking for a ban on gift wrap. If having your gifts wrapped makes you happy, and if unwrapping gifts make you happy, then who am I to stop you?

But I am no Jay-Z, so do not expect me to wrap, and if I do, do not expect my wrapping skills to be any good.