Unsticking Those Christmas Stickers

When I was growing up, most Christmas presents were wrapped and sealed together with Christmas stickers instead of scotch tape. After all, it was Christmas. Those stickers looked more like Christmas than strips of sticky cellophane tape. But they didn't stick as good as the tape.

My mother had a specific box in which she kept gift tags and Christmas stickers. I loved going through them and hinting which ones I liked the most. Getting the right stickers on one's gifts was quite important. I'm sure my mother thought so too.

Besides making gifts look like Christmas, there was another reason why I loved it when my mother used her Christmas stickers. You see, depending how many she put on the tissue paper to keep a gift sealed until Christmas morning and depending on if she was in a hurry putting the stickers in place, some of the stickers weren't sealed as tightly as needed. After a while, some would pop right up. Others would still stay in place until gently encouraged to let go while not ripping the paper. I discovered that phenomenon one day after getting back home from school and finding Christmas presents piled high in my parents' bedroom. All were wrapped. All were sealed with Christmas stickers. 

My mother was busy getting supper, so I went in that bedroom, sat next to the towering stack of gifts and checked them out, one by one. It was a rather large, bulky gift that caught my eye. Besides having my name written on the gift tag in my mother's distinct cursive style, I noticed some of the many Christmas stickers holding the tissue paper hiding that gift weren't really sticking. In fact, when I got even closer to take a better look, I was able to slowly pull a few stickers up and away from the paper just enough to be able to bend way down and take a peek. Moving even closer, taking a longer, more extended peek, I was elated. I knew what the wrapping paper was hiding! Yay!

You see, a few weeks earlier, my mother joined my aunts and grandmother at my grandmother's home. Someone was there showing them gifts they could buy. All the gifts were clothes. Kids clothes. Rather cool clothes for being clothes. I'd stopped in after school to take a look and found 'the' coat all the popular girls were wearing. I wanted that coat so badly. I went home and told my mother. She wasn't too receptive to my having such an expensive coat when I'd only outgrow it. That was her response. That was the end of the story until I sat in my parents' bedroom and slowly pulled a few stickers up and away from tissue paper my mother had used to wrap 'the' coat-the coolest coat ever; the coat all the popular girls were wearing.

On Christmas morning I eyed my coat all wrapped up under the tree. I ignored it. After all, I knew what it was, so I'd get back to it. I was too busy opening gifts with stickers solidly in place. Too busy being surprised. And I was not surprised when I finally unwrapped that popular coat.  

That was the last time I ever peeked at Christmas presents with my name on the tags and Christmas stickers holding the paper in place. I missed that feeling of surprise. It goes with Christmas morning.