Christmas wrap: a brief history

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In the back of our spare bedroom closet are a dozen partial rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. Every year when Thanksgiving is on the horizon, my wife takes inventory of the wrap and makes a note to stock up for the holidays.

“Who invented this stuff?” I asked. She shrugged and continued counting. “I mean, who decided we need decorated paper to wrap presents?” She shook her head. Curious, I clicked on my computer and began searching.

The Chinese started it by wrapping gifts in bamboo paper around the second century B.C. The Koreans followed suit 300 years later, and the Japanese traditionally wrapped gifts in cloth called furoshiki starting around 1600.

During the Victorian era, English gift givers wrapped presents in colored paper and tied them with ribbons and lace. Even the poor received gifts wrapped in brown paper, according to Charles Dickens in his book, “A Christmas Carol.”

Colored tissue paper was added to the mix at the beginning of the 20th century. But it wasn’t until 1917 in Kansas City, Mo., that Christmas wrap as we know it got started. It happened when two brothers who owned a stationery store sold out of tissue paper during the Christmas season. At a loss as to how to fill their customers’ requests for wrapping paper, they decided to offer their supply of French envelope lining paper as a substitute. Shoppers pounced on the gaudy lithographed paper, and it sold out immediately.

For the next two years the men put the lining paper on their shelves at Christmas, and both times they sold it all. In 1920 they began printing their own.

The brothers were Rollie and Joyce Hall. Their store was Hallmark.

I noticed some of our paper was made in China. I guess that brings it full circle.


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