2nd Half of Gift Wrapping Challenge

Okay, where did I leave off... I think Roger is up next.  His gift was for Patty (our younger daughter Pathena, the grandmother of wee Lily, we call her Patty cause most folks butcher her name. )

Patty has for many years collected Santa's, she has a whole house full, so this year she decided to start collecting Christmas trees. She also likes wire art so what better present than a HUGE wire tree decorated with many presents filled with a lovely variety of Christmas trees.  (Guess who I'm hoping gets my name next year!)

Click on the photos for a closer look.  In fact, if you double click you will get an even closer close up....

Patty's gift was for Heather.

Patty recalled when Heather was little she always hoped Santa would bring her a horse... so this year she finally got one.

Isn't he just an absolute delight? He is made of wrapped presents, it was hard to watch him dismantled. This is from the daughter who says she has no talent for making things...

This year Heather drew Eric's name.   Eric seems to inspire who every gets his name.... remember the PEZ?   He also collects penguins (we are a family of collectors, if you are not a collector when you join the family, you soon will be, its a requirement.)  this is a one of a kind addition to his collection..... It's a snow globe.... and it lights up!!  and yes, those are handmade polymer clay penguins.

Eric wrapped a gift for Cory. Eric flew in on the 31st and just made it in time for the gift exchange. He had to have something that was compact and easy to carry on the plane His gift was a Yule Log made from real logs that had been hollowed out.  He confessed he didn't do the hollowing, he purchased the logs at a pet store.... apparently they sell hollowed out logs for pet snakes.. icky!! but they made an elegant package.

If you are following the order here you will recall that Cory gave his gift to Brandon W. at the first party so the next up is Granddad Lynn, his gift is for Brandon L.

 Long ago we made a sacred pact to never let Granddad near a hammer, glue gun, roll of tape, wrapping paper, ribbon.... nothing that requires a modicum of  manual dexterity .... makes us all shutter thinking about it... so he is the one person in the family who is allowed to contract out his gift wrapping chore. Last year I wrapped for him, this year I passed the torch to Heather.

Brandon collects comic books (see, I told you, another collector) and his favorite is Green Lantern so of course his gift is wrapped in the form of a Green Lantern with lights and a handle.  Amazing what can be done with plastic bowls and cups... and a glue gun.  Pretty neat huh?

Brandon's gift was for his brother Nicholas. Brandon is the very worst procrastinator in the family. At 1:00 PM on the 31st he not only hadn't wrapped his gift he hadn't even bought his gift.... his mother and I were verklempted to say the least. We ordered him out the door and threatened him with sever bodily harm if he came back empty handed. Much to our surprise he not only came up with a nice gift he also did a fine job wrapping it.  Will wonders never cease?

Nicholas works in a coffee shop so Brandon made a "to go" coffee container, even put the shop name on the cup and gave it a candy cane stirrer.

Nicholas is up next, he wrapped a gift for Eugene.

 Eugene is a music lover, he collects records and CD's,  his favorite group use to be the Beatles but alas the Beatles have been replaced by a new group "Here come the Mummies" .  Now this Mummy group has a nice beat but "my oh my" the lyrics..... not nice, not nice at all!! I will say nothing more.

Nick cut open a poor little Teddy bear put tickets to a "Mummy" concert inside and wrapped the bear like a mummy....see. Isn't he the sweetest thing?  I just want to hug the poor little critter.

Eugene already gave his gift to Granddad Lynn... so Andrea is up next.

Andrea's gift was for Zachery. She made copies of photos and wrapped his gift.... not bad, but the competition is stiff this year...she promised to do better next year.

Zachery in turn wrapped a gift for Andrea. He was another of our procrastinators... not as bad as Brandon but ran a close second.  He did a darn good job too.

Andrea loves wine, she and Moe would have a great time.  Zachery wrapped her gift as a wine glass and filled it with "fruit" presents.   Came up with the idea all by himself,  he did good!!

That is almost the last of them... just one to go.... the grand prize winner of the coveted Santa Trophy!!

Drum roll please!!!

My sweet son drew my name and wrapped this fantabulous present just for me... made me cry!

Lynn got me a iPad for Christmas so Brad loaded it with games, audio books and songs from the 50's and made a wonderful slide show video featuring photos of the 1st half of my life. He wrapped it in the form of a picture album and used the video like a 50's drive-in theater.  My maiden name is Knight.... hence the "Knight Stories" theme.  Starts from when I was a baby.

Until Lynn and I got married.... and then kids came along. Thats a picture of us with the 2 girls above the slide show on the iPad.

He put a short bio on the inside back cover. 

Here's close up so you can read what it says, You can get a better look by clicking on the photo. (Just so you know, he was teasing his sisters with the comments at the end.)

And on the back cover he printed some of the comments left on my Flickr site. Brad is a stickler for detail... see the "Publisher" and the bar code. A pretty wonderful gift wouldn't you say?

Oh... and the reason he used a print of Wilma Flintstone is because for most of my life I had very long hair which I wore in a bun on the top of my head, like Wilma.

And that ends another Hendershott Family Holiday Special.  See you next year!!

 Best wishes for a Happy Healthy Peaceful New Year.

Merry White Christmas

We are having a White Christmas.... just enough snow to make everything look pretty.

Taken from the back porch

Corny checking out the snow

Taste test

My blue and brown tree fell over

It's fine now, Roger fixed it for me.

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Gift Wrapping

Here it is at long last... the saga of our annual gift wrapping contest. This is going to take awhile so grab a cup of coffee or tea or something stronger... wine perhaps... settle back and enjoy.

Okay this first one may seem a little strange for a Christmas gift. It is a gift for Sarah from her cousin Nick, they both have, oh I don't know, how shall I explain it... rather quirky senses of humor. The wrapping is based on a short story "The Gift" by Lou Reed. Google it and you will see what I mean. You googled it ... right? not exactly what you'd expect for Christmas huh? Told you they are weird, they take after hubby's side of the family.

All is not lost, the crate was filled with craft supplies which made Sarah very happy.

More in the spirit of Christmas, Amanda wrapped her gift as a Treasure Chest and filled it with artistic treasures she made herself. Uncle Brad was thrilled and Grandma was envious.

The Eric PEZ (last years winner) was put to good use by me again this year. Eric collects PEZ so the Eric PEZ was given a hat and scarf and filled with collectible PEZ. See that poor pathetic package sitting next to the Eric PEZ... that was Roger's entry this year. In fairness to Roger he has been working a lot of over time, his mother is ill and he thought he had more time to wrap his gift. The Eric PEZ reminds you what a good job he did last year. He'll make a come back next year.

Benjamin had Brandon's name so he wrapped his gift to resemble an Xbox. It was filled with collectible comic books ( I know they are called "graphic novels" but they look like comic books to me) and two really cool Tee shirts he printed himself. Benjamin has a TeeShirt printing business.

Brad went the more traditional route. His gift was a small tree all decked out in flowers, ornaments and lights that he found at Mom's house. The gifts for Andrea are at the bottom of the tree wrapped in paper and ribbons that he also found at Mom's house. Zachery had my name. He wrapped his gift as a Santa bag inside a chimney. Inside the bag is a wonderful Jim Shore Santa. I collect Santas and Jim Shore figures so it was the perfect gift.
Andrea gave Pathena (my not-Heather daughter) a set of stainless steel mixing bowls cleverly wrapped as a Christmas tree. First she individual wrapped the bowls is shiny green paper then assembled them in the shape of tree, added big stars and lights and a cool ornament at the top. How's that for a neat idea?
Cory and Eugene went together on their gift for Heather (my not-Pathena daughter) and Roger. They gave them a gift certificate to a Bed and Breakfast so they wrapped their gift as Breakfast in Bed. Check out the bacon and eggs, they look good enough to eat.
Okay I wrapped this one.. although technically the gift was from hubby for grandson-in-law Brandon (we have two Brandon's, grandson Brandon and this one who is married to granddaughter Sarah and is the father of sweet little Lily) His gift is a ukulele. At first I was going to wrap it as a gingerbread man then grandson Brandon suggested a hula girl...because of the ukulele. Okay, I thought, I can do that. I made polymer clay coconuts for her bra and had this neat shredded box for a skirt.... then her top was giving me trouble, the coconuts weren't working so I switched to a gypsy hence the scarves and jewelry which kinda transformed her into a cross between a gypsy and a hippie. As usual the family thought her a little strange....maybe "they" don't take after hubby's side of the family after all.
This pretty wrapped table is a gift for Benjamin from Lily's dad (easier than explaining it's from grandson-in-law Brandon rather than grandson Brandon). Benjamin is a Cardinals fan so his gift was a Cardinal's lamp and Cardinal's clock.
Grandson Brandon drew his granddads name. Granddad is a pharmacist so Brandon, along with his best friend also named Brandon (we are over run with Brandons), created a giant pill bottle and filled it with gift capsules. All my grandkids are talented.
Daughter Pathena... also called Patty.. drew Nicks name. Nick likes to make films so his package was wrapped as a projector and contained a fancy pair of pants for bicycling which he also like to do.

Heather's gift was for Eugene. Eugene is a big rock and roll fan, especially loves the Beatles so Heather wrapped his gift as a guitar adorned with big lips. She got him a "bunch of Rolling Stones stuff, that's why it's a Rolling Stones guitar". ( I couldn't remember what she got him so when I asked her that is what she said)This was one of my favorite gifts. Eric, with help from Brad, wrapped it for Amanda. He recreated a giant Lindor Truffles bag (see the real bag of Lindor Truffles sitting next to it) filled with individually wrapped truffles. Each truffle contained a hand made ceramic mug.
You still haven't seen the winning package... that's a whole story in itself and will be revealed

tomorrow. Oh come on, you knew I couldn't do this all in one day. I can feel the excitement building, can't you?

More 2008 Wrapped Christmas Gifts

I meant to post more of our wrapped gifts yesterday but I was having problems with my computer. We'll see if I can get it done tonight.

Click on the photos for a closer look.

This is a gift for Cory. Cory plays soccer so the box was decorated to resemble a soccer field. Cory gets extremely nervous before each game and almost always throws up... hence the polymer clay vomit on the corner. This is half of Ben's present.... he recently started smoking cigars so Eric got him a humidor, cigar cutter and cigars. This is a giant cigarette/cigar light made from tin foil and a tissue paper flame.
This is the other half of Ben's gift wrapped in red velvet and a tie to resemble a smoking jacket. I still cant believe they cut up a vintage Dior tie... that's what I get for turning them loose in my attic.
Heather wrapped this gift for our grandson-in-law Brandon. Brandon is in the navy and at Christmas time last year he was training to be a fire fighter. Heather made the sailor from polymer clay, the fire hose is rubber cord and the water and flames are tissue paper. I wish I had a close up of the sailor as it is a good likeness to Brandon.

Now I admit, these were all pretty neat but I still haven't shown you the winner.... tune in tomorrow... believe me it is worth the wait.

Christmas Gift Wrapping

Well it's official... December 1st... tis the Season to be jolly. Time to do some serious Christmas shopping. Fortunately I only have to buy three gifts.

Up until a couple years ago our gift giving was getting way out of hand, the cost and the stress of trying to buy for everyone was taking all the fun out of Christmas. We had resisted drawing names but decided to give it a try and to add a little spice to the process we had a gift wrapping contest with a traveling trophy for the best wrapped gift.

The first two years only the adults drew names, one adult's name and one child's name. Those classified as children were anyone still in school or college. The first year was a trial run and we did a pretty good job. Heather wrapped a gift in children's underwear and another in a Christmas print table cloth. I used coffee filters cut into snowflakes on the coffee maker I gave Patty and cartoons from old Playboys for the gift I gave Roger. Eric decorated one of his with playing cards and another with spices.

And then there was Roger..... here's a photo of his Santa and reindeer.Needless to say Roger won the Best Wrapped Trophy that year. Wow, just blew us away... we'd had some grumbling about the gift wrap challenge but the following year almost everyone jumped in with both feet.... they all wanted to take that trophy away from Roger.

Here's some of the gifts from 2008

Patty's "electric guitar" gift for Roger. I can't remember what she gave him but the wrapping was a hit.

I had to wrap both mine and hubby's so I created a snowperson family... the gifts are in the bodies and they are sporting the scarves I knitted.
Heather had her Dad's name, he likes Sci-Fi and space so she made a rocket ship. She rolled up the winter jacket she got him and put it inside. The blast off flames are made of colored tissue paper.
Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll show you more of the 2008 entries and the grand prize winner.