Last Minute Christmas Eve Gift Wrapping Marathon {Tips and Tricks}

By Angela Sellari

This post brought to you by Gallo Family Vineyards. The content and opinions expressed below are that of About A Mom.

It’s December and that means it is time to get serious about this Christmas morning thing.

Each year I say that I’m going to get my shopping done long before the Christmas rush, and I’m not going to wait until Christmas Eve to wrap everything. Year after year, I fail at this so miserably with this holiday season being no exception. Why do I kid myself? I still have so much shopping to do and will undoubtedly be pulling another Christmas Eve all-nighter. I will survive this holiday season like I do every other – with a good sense of humor.

Imagine this. It’s Christmas Eve and you’ve just used the last scrap of wrapping paper, but there are more presents to wrap. What are you going to do? Have no fear. I’m an old pro at this and have a few Christmas Eve gift wrapping tips and tricks to share with you.

Put on your Santa hat and let’s do this.

Christmas Eve Gift Wrapping Marathon Tip #1

Enlist help if you can. When I was a kid, my grandmother spent the night at our house every Christmas Eve. I always thought it was so she could be there to watch us open our gifts on Christmas morning. Years later I learned it was to help my mom and dad wrap gifts all night. With 4 children, there were a lot of presents to be wrapped. They needed all the help they could get.

Christmas Eve Gift Wrapping Marathon Tip #2

Put the kids to bed early. The excitement of St. Nick’s arrival is going to take your children longer than normal to fall asleep, so get an early start. Don’t forget to remind them that Santa isn’t going to come if they don’t fall asleep. Just kidding. (Not really.)

Christmas Eve Gift Wrapping Marathon Tip #3

Gather your supplies. You should probably do this before Christmas Eve. I have run out of wrapping paper before, and there are ways to deal with that. More on that in a minute though.

The one thing you don’t want to run out of on Christmas Eve is TAPE. Make sure you have plenty of tape. Unless you are okay resorting to the likes of gum, rubber bands or your hot glue gun, there really isn’t anything you can use instead of tape. So, make sure you have an ample supply of tape.

Christmas Eve Gift Wrapping Marathon Tip #4

So… you’ve run out of wrapping paper. There are a lot of things you can use. Think newspaper, old maps, and brown packing paper and get crafty. If you have absolutely nothing to use, consider taking gifts out of the package and displaying them under the tree. You can even place smaller toys such as action figures in the tree itself, like ornaments. How fun is that?!

Christmas Eve Gift Wrapping Marathon Tip #5

Have plenty of sustenance on hand. Wrapping presents all night long works up quite an appetite. Make sure you have plenty of snacks on hand, and maybe even a bottle of wine. I usually host Christmas Eve dinner, and like to pick up some of the larger (1.5L size) Gallo Family Vineyard Wines to serve my guests. The Chardonnay always goes over well with my family.

Here’s the trick: Buying the larger bottle betters my chances of having some left over for later in the night. If you see a bottle getting dangerously close to empty, just discreetly tuck it behind a cabinet until everyone has left for the evening.

Don’t forget you have Santa’s plate of cookies to nibble on too.

Each year I say that I’m not going to wait until the last minute to wrap gifts. But truth be told, it’s become a tradition. I can’t imagine not staying up all night wrapping presents on Christmas Eve.

I’m really looking forward to December 24. Once my little one is safely tucked up in bed, I’ll sit by the twinkly tree lights, pop on some Christmas music, grab a glass of wine and spend the evening wrapping presents.

Will you be pulling a Christmas Eve all-nighter this year too?