The History of Gift Wrapping Paper

Photo by cottonbro studio

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, Everyone! I'm so excited that the season is finally here. I've got a toddler and another one on the way, so the holiday season is so much fun, and I feel like a kid myself waiting for Christmas to arrive. We go ALL OUT for Christmas. I wish I could show you my house. But this being only the second of December, not all of my decorations are up yet. It's a process.

One of the things I take very seriously during the holidays is gift wrapping. I personally feel that a gift is more highly valued and appreciated when it is wrapped like intended for the king of England. Every year I pick a theme and wrap all my gifts alike so that everyone can tell which ones are from me. This obsession with gift wrapping led me to today's history tidbit: the history of wrapping paper.

Gift giving is an important element of society for many reasons. We give gifts to show love and favor, to apologize, to show appreciation, as part of business and political affairs, and to congratulate someone for an important milestone in their lives. It didn't take long for people to decide that the surprise element of the gift made it even better, thus the tradition of gift wrapping began.

It's hard for us to imagine Christmas presents without their elaborate paper veil, but at first, gifts would have been wrapped in cloth, leather, or some other material. But the invention of paper made an easier and less expensive way to conceal our gifts. The first documented use of paper as wrapping material was in China around 100 B.C. when the government would wrap monetary gifts in paper (making a sort of envelope) to distribute to government officials as gifts.

It was during the Victorian Era that gift giving became a true tradition of the holiday season. Originally, gifts were given at New Years rather than Christmas, but that changed as Christmas became more popular and accepted in the United States and Europe.

Victorian Christmas showing packages
wrapped in thick white paper

Photo source unknown

In the early 1800's, wealthy people would use thick paper to wrap their gifts. Then, in the later 1800's, tissue paper was introduced, and it became all the rage to wrap gifts in green, red or white tissue paper decorated with bows and ribbon.

The start of what we know today as wrapping paper happened by accident. It was 1917 in Kansas City, and a shop ran out of tissue paper. Instead, they happened upon some decorated paper from France that was meant for lining the inside of envelopes and decided to take a risk and offer that to customers instead. It quickly sold out. The owners of the shop, Rollie and J.C. Hall, jumped at the opportunity to promote this popular item and started featuring more designs. In 1930's they added ribbon to the already pretty packages. This company became Hallmark, and the modern wrapping paper industry was born.

Photo by cottonbro studio

The size of the wrapping paper industry today is immense. Annual sales are reported to be up to $9.36 billion dollars, with 4 million tons of the paper being thrown away during the holiday season in the United States alone. To put that into perspective, that would be about the weight of four Empire State Buildings. And we're talking about thin, light-weight paper here, folks. Astounding, isn't it? 

Unfortunately, most of the wrapping paper isn't even able to be recycled, due to the mix of foil and paper to make the pretty designs, and the light and inkiness of the paper. This has caused some to advocate for a change from traditional wrapping paper back to materials like newspaper and other more easily recyclable materials. Some wrapping paper companies have started using recycled materials to make the product in the first place. I'm looking forward to the progressions in this area.



What are your holiday gift wrapping traditions? I'd love to hear all about them!

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Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Lemus inspires hearts through enthralling tales She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".

She lives near the Ozarks in her "casita" with her prince charming. Between enjoying life as a boy mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at http://www.amberlemus.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

War-time Christmas 1861-1864

Celebrating Christmas on the Battlefield and Homefront
Martha Rogers

From 1861 to 1864 Christmas was difficult for families on both sides of the conflict between the North and South. My great-grandmother Sallie Dyer told of her worst Christmas ever in 1864 when she had not heard from her true love, Manfred, since early November before the battle of Nashville. She had no idea where he was or if he had survived the battle his regiment fought in Tennessee.

Similar scenes played out across the states as those left behind pondered the

fate of their loved ones or mourned the passing of sons, brothers and husbands.

Despite the circumstances, the holiday and celebrating the birth of Jesus was important to both sides. Stories are told of units spending Christmas Eve with enemies singing Christmas carols across enemy lines in a night when the guns were silent to remember the Savior’s birth.

During this time, the first introductions to the modern image of jolly old St. Nick entered their lives through drawings by an immigrant German-speaking artist, Thomas Nast. Another German custom, the Christmas tree, also played a role in the celebration of Christmas with table top size trees and beautiful ornaments, some of them home-made. 

Christmas packages were sent to the front and in most cases were delivered. One soldier, John Haley of Maine, wrote, “It is rumored that there are sundry boxes and mysterious parcels over at Stoneman’s Station directed to us. We retire to sleep with feelings akin to those of children expecting Santa Claus.” Many letters home mentioned decorating camp Christmas trees and having a dinner of salt-pork and hard tack.

The holiday reminded everyone of the melancholy settling over the entire nation. Many parents, especially in the South, warned their children that Santa might not make it across enemy lines thus no gifts under the tree for Christmas morning. Soldiers were reminded more acutely than ever of the domestic bliss left behind. 

The people of Fredericksburg, Virginia had the war brought right to their doorstep only a matter of days before the holiday. Theirs was indeed a bleak Christmas. Perhaps the most well-known war-time Christmas event is the capture of Savannah by General Sherman who wrote a letter to Lincoln on December 22, 1864 giving the President the gift of the beginning to the end of the war. 

Christmas served as both an escape as well as a reminder of the conflict dividing the country. Families back home celebrated but with an eye on that empty chair at the table, wondering when it would again be filled. Children were content to receive hand-carved toys, fruit, and other home-made items. Even General Sherman’s men brought food to starving families in the war stricken Georgia countryside.

The novel, Little Women, was one of my favorite books and I remember Christmas for the March girls during the war. Christmas went on despite horrific conditions and loved ones missing from the family gatherings.

Other wars since that time have brought the same feelings of loneliness and loss to countless loved ones. Through it all, Christmas was one holiday that brought hearts together to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Information source: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/on-the-homefront/culture/christmas-during-the-civil-war.html

Martha Rogers is a free-lance writer and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston where they enjoy spending time with their grandchildren.  A former English and Home Economics teacher, Martha loves to cook and experimenting with recipes and loves scrapbooking when she has time. She has written three series, Winds Across the Prairie and Seasons of the Heart and The Homeward Journey. Her new contemporary series, Love in the Bayou City of Houston and novella, Christmas Blessing are now available on Amazon.  

Find Martha at:  www.marthawrogers.com

CHRISTMAS DURING THE 1920s

ANNE GREENE here. 

The 1920s ushered in significant changes in American life. Most Americans acquired their first radios and automobiles and achieved the highest standard of living in the nation's history.

The celebration of Christmas changed as well. President Calvin Coolidge celebrated with the first national Christmas tree in the White House. He lit the sixty-foot fir in an impressive ceremony in 1923.

Cotton ornaments, inexpensive and unbreakable, enjoyed great popularity. By the late 1920s, however, Americans imported spectacular glass ornaments from Germany. In the 1920s, advertisers standardized the popular image of Santa Claus, originally created by German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast.

The Friend Telegraph on December 11, 1925, remarked in an editorial entitled "How Times Change": In Christmas seasons gone by, it was not considered good form for a young man to give his best girl articles of wearing apparel. To do so indicated that her people neglected to clothe her. A man’s gift had to be an album, a toilet set or something along that line.

In the 1920s Christmas giving grew more sensible giving the recipient gifts they could use. People bought more for the home. Rather than pictures and mementos, a chair, a new rug, dishes or silverware, labor-saving devices and even new-fangled cooking utensils became favorite gifts. “Give a woman something serviceable to wear or something she can use in her home and you gladden her heart. Give a man something for his auto, or something he can wear besides neckties, and you win his thanks.”

The 1920s became the age of flapper fashion and jazz music. New fashions in art and architecture, from art deco to modernism jumped into fashion. Frank Lloyd Wright built his ultra-modern homes. In 1927, Lindbergh made the first flight across the Atlantic. Hot toys included die-cast metal toys, the Raggedy Ann doll, and, toward the end of the decade, the yo-yo.

A Christmas Budget in the 1920s purchased such items as:

A Persian rug: $40.00

Winter overcoat: $18.50

Fountain pen: $2.50

Silk hat: $7.50

RCA Radiola: $115.00

RCA Radiola with loudspeaker: $150.00

One-pound box of chocolates: $6.50

Ladies’ silk umbrella: $10.00

Toy tool chest: $1.55

Juvenile model bicycle: $48.75

Girls’ ice skates: $5.00

Beautiful jointed doll with wig, dress, shoes, and stockings: $1.95. 

Victrola brand phonograph: $99.80.

One of the most popular dances, the Charleston, lent its name to a dress completely covered in fringe, that would move and shake along with the body's movement, revealing the legs. This embroidered or shawled dress invaded all of high society. These were the Fitzgerald years, and many of the period's actresses wore these fringed dresses in either short or long versions. This would make a popular Christmas gift.

In the News in the 1920s:

Prohibition Made Its Presence Felt:

Shortly after the Volstead Act went into effect, federal authorities issued an announcement that America’s newspapers included in the Christmas Eve edition: The use fermented wines for sacramental purposes during religious services is forbidden.

At an elite Christmas party attended by Charming H. Cox, the governor of Massachusetts, prohibition agent Harold Wilson seized four bottles of White Horse Cellar whiskey. A major scandal ensued, and the bottles disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Headline of an article in the December 5, 1926, Providence Journal, urged procrastinating wives to show more thought during the holiday season. The article is accompanied by an illustration of an unnamed acquaintance who dreaded Christmas and spent the holiday in bed, with ice-bags at her head and feet.

Christmas Advertising in the 1920s:

(In 1897 Francis P Church, Editor of the New York Sun, wrote an editorial in response to a letter from an eight year-old girl, Virginia O'Hanlon. She had written the paper asking whether there really was a Santa Claus. It became known as the Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus letter.)

So by the 1920's the image of Santa had been standardized to portray a bearded, over-weight, jolly man dressed in a red suit with white trim.

Santa suggested the newspaper reader enjoy the following for Christmas dinner: Tradition dictated fowl, cranberry sauce, and mince pie or Christmas pudding, plus the usual items not absolutely required by rule, such as stuffing with the fowl, and rich giblet gravy, sweet and Irish potatoes, some kind of salad, fruit cake and Mincemeat pie. All these items could now be purchased at your local grocers.

Christmas Traditions in the 1920s:

Home-made Christmas cards became popular. They were often unusual shapes and constructed with foil and ribbon. These cards were too delicate to send through the post and people delivered them by hand. A gift of Christmas cookies accompanied the card.

The tradition of hanging the Christmas stocking was thought to arise from the following story: A poor man had three daughters. He was so destitute, he didn’t have enough money for a dowry, so his daughters couldn't marry. (A dowry is money paid to the bridegroom by the bride’s parents on the wedding day.)

One night, Nicholas secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney and into the house. The bag fell into a stocking that had been hung by the fire to dry! This meant the oldest daughter had a dowry and could marry.

The same gift was repeated later with the second daughter. Determined to discover the person who had given him the money, the father hid by the fire until he caught Nicholas dropping down a bag of gold. Nicholas begged the man not to tell anyone what he’d done, because he didn’t want to bring attention to himself.

But soon the news got out, and when anyone received a secret gift, he thought that Nicolas gave the gift. Because of his kindness, the church proclaimed Nicholas a Saint.

Besides the many unfamiliar Christmas songs filling the air, Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, and Let It Snow, Let It Snow were popular. And, of course, people sang the Christmas Carols we all know.

Christmas really was not so different from the way we celebrate Christmas today.

Which one of those 1920s gifts would you have given the man in your life? Leave a comment for a chance to win Anne’s newest release, MARRIAGE BY ARRANGEMENT.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about wounded heroes and gutsy heroines. Her second novel, a Scottish historical, Masquerade Marriage, won the New England Reader Choice award, the Laurel Wreath Award, and the Heart of Excellence Award. The sequel Marriage By Arrangement released in November, 2013.  A Texas Christmas Mystery also won awards. She makes her home in McKinney, Texas. Tim LaHaye led her to the Lord when she was twenty-one and Chuck Swindoll is her Pastor. View Anne’s travel pictures and art work at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books at http://www.PelicanBookGroup.com. Or http://www.Amazon.com.

Visit http://www.anneswritingupdates.blogspot.com for information on writing an award-winning novel.