This is a photo of one of the gifts I took to a white elephant gift exchange. I just bought a large roll of gift wrap at Sam’s Club. I keep a container under a bed full of ribbons, bows, etc. for packages. I don’t remember where the gold poinsettias on top of the gift came from — probably from a gift that someone gave me. I believe in recycling. I am not the best gift wrapper in the world. I think there is a real art to getting the exact amount of paper and folding square corners. I usually have too much paper where sometimes I crumple the underside to fit and bring a smooth side over, covering it up. There have been times when I have had too little paper. Then I precisely cut a long, wide strip to be pasted underneath the wrapping at the appropriate spot. Thank goodness for gift bags. They do make wrapping so much easier, although getting the tissue paper to look like natural peaks coming out of the bag can be difficult. I have usually bought wrapping paper, but I have received a gift or two wrapped in newspaper, one was from an artist who colored the comics page. At any rate, the magic of gift wrapping is the mystery of the unknown. It makes things so much more intriguing and interesting. Sometimes the way a gift is packaged makes revealing the contents more of a surprise than others. It’s like reading a good book with plot twists that throw you off. That’s good writing and good wrapping. Let’s learn more about gift wrapping.
According to Wikipedia, gift wrapping is the act of enclosing a gift in some sort of material. Wrapping paper is a kind of paper designed for gift wrapping. An alternative to gift wrapping is using a gift box or bag. A wrapped or boxed gift may be held closed with ribbon and topped with a decorative bow, an ornamental knot made of ribbon.
The use of wrapping paper is first documented in ancient China, where paper was invented in second century BC. In the Southern Song dynasty, monetary gifts were wrapped with paper, forming an envelope known as a chih pao. The wrapped gifts were distributed by the Chinese court to government officials. In the Chinese text “Thien Kung Khai Wu,” Sung Ying-Hsing states that the coarsest wrapping paper is manufactured with rice straws and bamboo fiber.
According to Emily VanSchmus’s August 3, 2020, article “Why Do We Wrap Gifts? The Fascinating History of Wrapping Paper” in Better Homes and Gardens, the first recorded form of gift wrap is actually fabric: Those who practiced traditional Korean folk religions during the Three Kingdoms Period believed that wrapped items were a symbol of protection and good luck, so giving a gift wrapped in cloth was a way to bestow protection and good fortune upon the recipient.
According to Wikipedia, a bojagi is a traditional Korean wrapping cloth. Bojagi are typically square and can be made from a variety of materials, though silk or ramie are common. Embroidered bojagi are known as subo, while patchwork or scrap bojagi are known as chogak bo.
Bojagi have many uses, including as gift wrapping, in weddings and in Buddhist rites. More recently, they have been recognized as a traditional art form, often featured in museums and inspiring modern reinterpretations.
The earliest surviving examples, from the early Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), were used in a Buddhist context, as tablecloths or coverings for sutras. The cloths particularly marked special events — such as weddings or betrothals — where the use of a new cloth was believed to convey "an individual's concern for that which was being wrapped, as well as respect for its recipient." For a royal wedding, up to 1,650 bojagi might be created.
Everyday use of bojagi declined in the 1950s, and they were not treated by Koreans as art objects until the late 1960s. In 1997, the "Korean Beauty" postage stamp series included four stamps featuring bojagi.
Physical characteristics
Traditionally, the bojagi is a square, measuring from one p'ok in width — approximately 35 cm — for small items to 10 p'ok for larger objects such as bedding. Materials included silk, ramie and hemp.
Royal bojagi – kung-bo
Royal wrapping cloths were known as kung-bo. Within the Joseon royal court, the preferred fabric in bojagi construction was domestically produced pink-red to purple cloth. These fabrics were often painted with designs, such as dragons.
Unlike the used and reused frugality of nonroyal wrapping cloths, hundreds of new bojagi were commissioned on special occasions such as royal birthdays and New Year’s Day.
Min-bo or chogak bo were "patchwork" bojagi made by commoners. In contrast with the royal kung-bo, which were not patchwork, these cloths were created from small segments — "chogak" — of fabric from other sewing, such as those left over from cutting the curves in traditional hanbok clothing. Both symmetrical "regular" and seemingly random "irregular" patterned cloths were sewn, with styles presumably selected by an individual woman's aesthetic tastes.
As food coverings
Chogak bo are closely associated with food coverings. The mid-19th century to early 20th century examples that have survived until the present day often have a small loop of ribbon attached in the center of the square, to aid in lifting the cover away from food. Table-sized bojagi often have straps attached to the corners, so they can be fastened to the table to secure items in place when the table is moved.
Different bojagi were used for covering different foods and at different seasons. While lightweight cloths helped air to circulate during summer, to keep food warm in winter bojagi could be padded and lined as well. To prevent the bojagi from being dirtied from food, the underside is often lined with oiled paper.
Embroidered bojagi or subo
Embroidered bojagi, also called subo — the prefix su means embroidery, was another form of decorated cloth. A common ornament was that of stylized trees, varying in style from “naïve” to detailed depictions of flowers, fruits, birds and symbols of good luck. These cloths are closely associated with joyous occasions such as betrothals and weddings, used to wrap items such as gifts from the family of the bridegroom to the new bride and the symbolic wooden wedding geese which is a metaphor of the groom's fidelity and protection.
The embroidery was done with spun thread, on a cotton or silk ground. The subo fabric was then lined and possibly padded. Mothers of brides during the Joseon Dynasty frequently stitched dozens of bojagi for their daughters to take to their new homes. Because many survive in pristine condition, these bojagi did not have a practical function, but served as signs of affection and good wishes.
According to Emily VanSchmus’s August 3, 2020, article “Why Do We Wrap Gifts? The Fascinating History of Wrapping Paper” in Better Homes and Gardens, another early gift wrapping tradition is the Japanese style of furoshiki — wrapping gifts in cloth fabric, which has been around since the Tokugawa period in the 1600s.
Furoshiki
According to Wikipedia, furoshiki are traditional Japanese wrapping cloths traditionally used to wrap and/or to transport goods. Consideration is placed on the aesthetics of furoshiki, which may feature hemmed edges, thicker and more expensive materials, and hand-painted designs; however, furoshiki are much less formal than fukusa, and are not generally used to present formal gifts.
While they come in a variety of sizes, they are typically square. Traditional materials include silk or cotton, but modern furoshiki are available in synthetic materials like rayon, nylon or polyester.
History
The first furoshiki cloths were tsutsumi — "wrapping" — used during the Nara period as protection for precious temple objects. By the Heian period, cloths called hiratsusumi meaning "flat wrap" were used to wrap clothes. These cloths came to be known as furoshiki during the Muromachi period; the term furoshiki — literally "bath spread" — is said to have come about after high-ranking visitors to bathhouses packed their belongings in cloth decorated with their family crest.
They became popular in the Edo period with increased access to bathhouses by the general public; moreover, cloths with family crests grew in demand as common people gained the right to have family crests during the Meiji period.
Modern furoshiki may be made from fabrics of various thicknesses and price points, including silk, chirimen, cotton, rayon and nylon. The cloth is typically square, and while sizes vary, the most common are 18 inches × 18 inches and 28 inches × 28 inches.
Furoshiki usage declined in the post-war period, in large part due the proliferation of paper and plastic bags available to shoppers. In recent years, however, it has seen a renewed interest as environmental protection has become a greater concern. In 2006, Japanese Minister of the Environment, Yuriko Koike, showcased a specially-designed furoshiki cloth to promote environmental awareness. In 2020, The Observer reported a growing interest in furoshiki in the UK, in part as a response to its perceived greater environmental sustainability compared to traditional single-use wrapping paper.
Modern history
According to Berkeley Bryant’s Dec. 16, 2019 article “A Brief History of Paper: From Recording Paper to Wrapping Gifts” in the College of Natural Resources News at NC State University, before the 20th century, wrapping gifts was largely an upper-class tradition of using elaborately decorated paper, lace and ribbons. At the turn of the century, the most widespread gifting practice was tissue paper, mainly colored red, green or white. But in 1917, the paper industry was forever changed — again.
Business was booming for two brothers running a stationery store in Kansas City, Missouri. J.C. and Rollie Hall were helping customers when they realized they had run out of the standard tissue paper needed for the busy holiday season. It wasn’t like today when you can simply get one-day delivery on Amazon goods. They needed a solution, and fast.
Rollie found leftover “fancy French paper” not meant for wrapping gifts, but for lining envelopes. As a last-second effort to keep business steady, they put that paper out on display for 10 cents a sheet. It sold out in minutes.
The Hall brothers tested their luck in 1918, and the paper sold out again just as fast. The following year, they decided to focus their efforts on creating their own version of the “fancy French paper,” and thus the wrapping paper industry was born.
According to Wikipedia, the Hallmark company promoted the new designs in the subsequent decades, adding ribbons in the 1930s, and it remains one of the largest American producers of gift wrap. Hallmark records that gift wrap accounts for $3.2 billion annually in retail sales in the U.S.
Waste
In Britain, it is estimated that 226,800 miles of wrapping paper is thrown away annually at Christmas. In Canada, 6 million rolls of tape are used and discarded yearly for gift wrapping at Christmas. Some people attempt to avoid this by unwrapping gifts with care to hopefully allow the paper to be reused, while others use decorated cloth gift sacks that can be easily reused many times; both of these concepts are part of the green gifting trend that encourages recycling. Many people are moving into the trend of wrapping gifts with newspaper, magazine pages, old maps, calendars and into baskets to save single use wrapping paper from ending up in the garbage.
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