To leave my DH to wrap the stocking presents?

[Growingboys]

Ok every year for the past dozen we've had kids, I've done the wrapping (and the choosing and the buying obvs). My family, his family, stockings, and this year is no exception.

(The poor martyr does manage to wrap what he gives me though - exhausting, I know)

Tonight we sat down to wrap the stockings - brown paper, crap wrapping's fine: not too taxing- and he proved himself unable to share the sellotape. It has to be near him as he needed it all the time.

Ditto the scissors.

He wrapped in a very loud, self-conscious, heroic way. This being the first time he has wrapped anything other than the odd thing he gives me, it must be a real challenge and perhaps I am not recognising his genius at rising to the occasion.

On the 15th attempt to reach for the sellotape, as he sighed at my annoyingness, I said ok, you're the wrapping king. You do it all.

(Three fucking stockings worth)

Now he is wrapping SO loudly, with SO many martyred sighs, I just want to kill him. But to rile him even further, I am lying in our bed in full relaxation mode, reading MN on my phone to signify that fact and to fuck him off.

AIBU?

We wrap. Especially as adults may only get stockings.

But small presents are easy to wrap. It is the big child ones that are a pain.

Not bothered about special paper either. FC is a glorified delivery person. Not overly thought out three mythology. The way he used to be able to do amazing wrapping of the presents he delivered to my grandparents with bows and shiny bits and yet at home they were sometimes wrapped in a plastic bag abs duct tape... that was all just part of the mystery 😆

I haven't even bought mine yet. As I'm at work it will be a pack of sprouts from the local coop and a sandwich from pret.

"I can't believe people don't wrap the stocking fillers!"

I know!

What's the point of just sticking stuff in a stocking?

And brown paper-why?

Ok every year for the past dozen we've had kids, I've done the wrapping (and the choosing and the buying obvs).

Why obvs ? That was your initial mistake. Leave the paper, scissors and sellotape somewhere easy to find then leave him the fuck to it.

DH took 6yo DS to buy my a cheap present, they got me a bar of soap (my usual one that i love), and they will wrap it together tonight - DS is giggling with excitement. It was DH's idea that we take 6yo out individually and he buys us something for €1 and wrap it. Because DH is a grown up who thinks of others without prompting and wraps his own presents because he has hands. Luckily his massive balls don't get in the way.

We don't wrap stocking gifts, complete waste of paper. The stocking is wrapping enough. It will still rustle at the foot of the bed because it has toy packaging in it.

My husband is brilliant at wrapping whereas I am shit. Plus I hate it. So he wraps all the kids gifts, plus all his family.

I do stockings and my family.

Oh are you getting dramatic sighs and huffs and puffs. I love those yaSnbu

I wrap them all. Couldn’t imagine not having wrapped presents in the stocking or downstairs under the tree!
We normally do it together - my top tip as my DH is also a sellotape hog - have two rolls of tape and two pairs of scissors .

The fun is enhanced by the unwrapping! I absolutely wrap.
We will do it one evening soon.
But I get the huffing and puffing. DH does it for affect if I've asked (told) him to do something.

Really? Can't you appreciate how lucky you are to have a loving husband to share this with and a nice family to wrap presents for and the fortune to be able to afford to buy presents?

Sorry, I know we all have our moments when we need to moan, but I really really hope that's all it was, a spur of the moment and you've since made up and kissed because otherwise, you really need to go out and see what life is for other much less fortunate people.

Oh swing it's pretty obvious the OP was being light-hearted...

Definitely make him share the wrapping! But a pair of scissors and roll of sellotape each is the only way to do it without both of you ending up wanting to LTB!

Eveything gets wrapped in our stockings

I normally wrap everything bar my own presents. This year though my husband has wrapped all but one present. Without me even asking him. Who is he and what has he done with my real Husband?

We don't do stockings, but I imagine that I would wrap them, because I kinda like wrapping and if I had my own, more gifts to unwrap

On Wrapping Night, DH and I bring home our tape dispensers from work and have a scissors each. It's the only way to avoid murder by wrapping paper suffocation.

I absolutely do not wrap stocking presents. My dc do not appear traumatised in any way, in fact they are extreme Father Christmas enthusiasts.

I have this year done the two stocking trick. They are all ready to go, locked in a downstairs cupboard.

My life is easier, I don't do stocking fillers, problem solved.

OP, I am amazed you stayed in the same room than your very loud, self-conscious, heroic wrapping hero
I would have left him get on with it!

I also wrap stocking presents with a different roll of paper! I do most of the wrapping in our house because I’m a weirdo who actually enjoys it and DH hates it.

YANBU.

I also do all the choosing, buying and wrapping. He just has to wrap mine and last year he actually asked why he couldn't just blindfold me and get me to wrap my own gift.

Whoa whoa whoa! Not wrap stocking presents? NOT WRAP STOCKING PRESENTS???

I haven't had a stocking for decades but I was only describing this morning to a colleague that feeling when you wake in the morning and you can feel the weight of the stocking on your feet and hear the scrunchiness of the wrapping paper.

Honestly. Not wrapping stocking presents? Shame on you.

Sorry Charlotte i don't see the point.

It is wasteful.
It is another thing to do.
It is a faff.*
They are going to be encased in a sock - so pretty pointless.

Main gifts are wrapped, but not stockings. As i said before, they still crinkle and crunch because there's a Lego blindbag in it, and some chocolate etc. DS' stocking will be hung on his door handle, at his request, so he won't feel its weight on his bed or hear the crinkly paper anyway.

• i like wrapping and am pretty fucking good at it.

Shame on you did make me laugh! What bollocks

I still don't get the point of stockings, sorry.

I'm with dontcallmecharlotte - my favourite Christmas memory from my childhood was the heavy stocking at the end of the bed and feeling by wrapped gifts but not knowing what they were. My sister and I always shared a room on Christmas Eve so we could open our stockings together and it also bought my parents an extra 30/45 mins in bed while we unwrapped and played with whatever we had got!

Stockings are magical. I felt guilty that I didn't wrap a mini figure that was already in a little bag. I wrapped everything else. In different paper.

I think we may be married to the same man, OP!

I wrapped all the stocking presents for the three dses and for dh, plus most of the other presents for people - upward of 50 items, in one go. Dh wrapped two mugs and a jug for my sister and BIL, and a bowl for my mum - and he made more of a palaver about it than I did, wrapping 50+ things. It was very amusing to watch.

He doesn't get territorial with the sellotape, but does believe that he is the ONLY person who can pack and label a package for posting correctly and safely. I am not even allowed to cut the parcel tape for him, when he's taping up a parcel.

I don't know how he thinks I manage to pack things all by my little self!

He hasn't bought my stocking presents yet so I have two lots of Conspicuous Christmas Activity from him to look forward to - the shopping and the wrapping.

But he gets a pass on all these little irritations this year because both times my mum has been in hospital (hundreds of miles from where we live, but in reasonable distance of London, where he works), he's trekked out from London to visit her, collect things for her, and bring her biscuits, on several occasions. My mum is not the most patient patient, so this is above and beyond the call of duty.

Oh and definitely different paper (for each of the three children) from what we use for everything else.

Genius idea re the identical stockings, shame it's far too late for that here. I was spotted by DSs last year when I snuck the stockings out. But they do have to be on the end of the bed or you don't get the lovely heavy rustly stocking on feet sensation (best thing about Christmas when I was little).

I agree you have to wrap stocking presents and in a different paper the DC have never seen lying about the house.

OP - you need to leave him to it and just go out next time, invent an urgent mission. That way you don't have to listen to all the tedious man drama huffing and puffing, and he is more likely to survive until Christmas Day