It happened every year, I seriously don’t know how Angie managed it on her own in the past. Every year one week before Winter Starmas, Angie would gather all the gifts she had bought for her huge ass family, dragged out a ginormous box of wrapping paper and bows, and sat down to wrap every last one of those presents. Just her close family that happened to live in Mors Bay numbered about a hundred, so it was a shit ton of gifts to wrap.

And this year she decided to recruit all of us to help, whether we wanted to help or not.

The second I stepped through the front door, Angie was latching onto my arm and dragging me towards the dining counter that boxed in our kitchen and we used to eat our meals on.

Well, now it was used for a gift wrapping extravaganza! There was torn wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, and wads of tape everywhere.

In among the heaps of rumpled paper was Jiro’s head peeking out over the top. His face blank with disinterest, his hands moving like lightning, churning out wrapped gift after wrapped gift.

Hmm, looks like he’d already been abducted and prodded into holiday forced labor before I even showed up.

Tina was running around giggling, a bag of peal and stick bows in her hands, busy sticking bows on anything she could reach. The backs of chairs, the edge of the counter, Jiro’s elbow, nothing was safe from her bow sticking mission.

Angie grabbed my shoulders and shoved me onto a stool at the counter, the scooted a tall pile of boxes my direction along the counter.

“Come on, we still have seventy-eight presents to wrap, and you’re making us fall behind.”

I am?!

Since when have all these gifts been my fault?

I grumbled and scowled and grabbed some paper to start swaddling my first present.

Three minutes later.

(Riiiiiiiip!)

Angie cursed yet again.

“Gods damn it! Why the hell is this stupid wrapping paper so flimsy!”

She yanked the torn paper off yet another gift and flung it to the floor, glaring at the now unwrapped present.

She flicked her eyes to me.

Eeep!

“Kari, Kari, you got tape in your hair again.”

Ah crap.

Stupid tape, why does it fly everywhere?

We both looked over at Jiro, he had a quarter of the counter neatly stacked with perfectly wrapped gifts.

Damn it. We were falling behind!

Five minutes later back up finally wandered through the door in the form of the twins.

Both me and Angie lunged at their arms and started dragging them towards the decorating disaster.

Angie yanked on Reno’s arm.

“Come on, you need to help us with wrapping.”

I nodded shoving Vegas from behind.

“Yeah, hurry up. We’re falling behind because of you two.”

Reno squawked.

“Oh hell no! King’s Games has a gift wrapping special and we’ve been wrapping people’s damn shopping all day long!”

Angie huffed and shoved some more.

“Great, than you have plenty of practice!”

Six minutes later.

Angie squinted her eyes at me, looking confused.

“Kari, Kari, you have wrapping paper down the front of your shirt.”

Damn it, I wondered where that had gone to.

I looked down at my lackluster wrapping job, it was really just paper wadded around a box and then tape and ribbon wrapped around it to keep the paper blob in place.

Damn that looked like shit.

Looking around the room, the twins were still wrapping away at a snails pace, looking miserable. Angie was tearing through yet more wrapping paper and cursing enough to make a witch faint. Tina was crashed out on the couch, snoozing after her bow sticking rein of terror. Jiro was still cranking out creepily flawlessly wrapped presents. A third of the counter was now towering with them.

Then Noah strolled through the front door.

Four desperate gift wrappers descended on the poor unsuspecting guy. Noah had a jaunty little Santa cap propped on his head, and looked weirdly like a lawn gnome.

Screw it, even lawn gnomes can wrap a present.

Angie snapped.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Reno snagged his arm.

“Come on, you need to help us with wrapping.”

Vegas grabbed the front of Noah’s shirt, and shot and order.

“Hurry up!”

I grabbed a hold of his waistband and heaved.

“You’re making us fall behind!”

We nearly picked him up and carried Noah over the the wrapping counter.

Noah was flashing his shocked bunny eyes, looking around in alarm.

“Wrapping presents?! B-but, I’ve never wrapped a present before!”

Angie shrugged.

“That’s okay, Kari sucks a wrapping, you couldn’t possibly be worse than her.”

Hey! My wrapping isn’t that bad!

Reno prodded me.

“Kari, Kari, you’ve got some ribbon stuck to your back.”

Damn it.

Noah didn’t seem to be reassured by what Angie said, he just kept staring around looking kind of freaked as everyone got back to work.

Angie tore through yet another sheet of wrapping paper.

“Gods damn, mother f*cking !@#%%&%^&*^$&*%^#$%#!!!!”

The twins sunk back into their dazed wrapping zombie misery.

“Will the wrapping ever end?”

And I managed to make another blobby wad of wrapping paper.

The counter was now half covered with Jiro’s perfectly wrapped gifts.

Noah’s horror filled eyes drifted over the scene again then zoomed in on our mostly empty box of wrapping crap.

“Oh, gee, it looks like we’re almost out of wrapping paper. I better go out and get some more.”

And before anyone could grab him, Noah zipped out the door.

Damn, for a short guy he could really scamper when he wanted to.

Twenty-three minutes later.

Noah came bustling in, bulging shopping bags hanging on his arms, a huge smile on his face.

“I got a bunch of gift bags. I thought that would be easier than wrapping all these presents.”

For a long moment everyone at the wrapping counter of doom froze, staring at Noah in wonder.

Then, like a dam broke, the room burst with joyous sounds.

Vegas raced across the room and wrapped Noah up in a hug, he was nearly in tears.

“It’s like it’s a Starmas miracle!”

Reno crowed and lunged for Noah.

“Santa came early because he loves us and wants our suffering to end!”

I scurried over to the group and started unloading Noah’s arms of easy wrapping materials.

“Noah, you are a holiday genius!”

Angie came stomping over with her big stompy feet.

“No, no, no! We are supposed to wrap these gifts by hand with love. We can not go wimping out and just dump the stuff in bags.”

Vegas was shaking his head at Angie.

“Sure we can, it’s super easy. You just open the bag and stuff the crap in.”

Reno was nodding.

“I like this idea. I like it a lot.”

Angie glared some more.

“No, wrapping presents is supposed to take blood, sweat, and tears. Lots of tears. You’re loved ones should know you suffered for them. That’s what the holidays are all about!”

Me, Noah, and the twins all shared a look.

“Screw that, I’m using the bags!”

Three minutes later the last of the gifts were bundled into bags, and we even used some of Angie’s shredded wrapping paper as stuffing. For a grand total of:

Jiro – 71 gifts wrapped

Twins – 16 gifts wrapped

Me – 0 gifts wrapped (evidently my wrapping wasn’t good enough so they all had to go into bags)

Angie – 2 gifts wrapped with out tearing them

Saint Noah – brought the bags

I looked over the little cluster of gifts bags snuggled up to the small mountain of Jiro’s perfectly wrapped gifts.

Huh.

“Hey, Uncle Jiro. Why are you the one out of the family that’s so good at wrapping?”

Jiro nodded sagely.

“The Japanese have a long and noble tradition of gift wrapping.”

His sat up with pride.

“It’s in the blood.”