That's a wrap: An ode to all of the gift-wrapping fanatics

Welcome to the 2017 Competitive-Gift-Wrapping Xtreme Xmas Championships! We’re so excited to be here in Gabby’s Living Room Stadium where three of the country’s fiercest and finest Gift-Wrappers are about to do battle on the three-seater combat-couch!

Contestants are warming up now, peeking inside their gift-bags, making last-minute corner-creasing adjustments … and now the teapot whistle goes off, signalling the beginning of the bout! Let the gift-wrapping BEGINNNNNNN!!!!

Gabby The Chalkboard Gift-Tagger attacks first, whipping her gifts out of her bag. She’s come out fighting with a corrugated-cardboard wrapping, hand-watercoloured in blue and peach paisley, and complemented by a DIY flower-topper made of preserved moss and air-dried rosemary sprigs!

And here’s her signature move – a chalkboard gift-tag featuring a hand-drawn sketch of a tiny adorable bird! The words “craft-ilicious!” and “so gorrrrrg!” echo through the stadium. But … wait! Those rosemary sprigs seem a bit crumbly. They may have been over air-dried! The mood shifts dramatically. Gabby looks pale. This fatal misjudgment could prove to be her sprigging downfall!

Striking back fast, Rustic Raffia Rachel presents her gifts to her rivals! She’s gone on the offensive with … charming miniature “Country Kitchen” burlap sacks! It’s a crazy, controversial choice! Each sack is ink-stamped in red and black criss-crosses, tied up with honey-accented raffia, and finished with a trio of holly-green pom-poms, all edible!

Her couch-combatants look dazed, defeated. Rustic Raffia Rachel sits back with an air of smugness. Nobody expected burlap. Nobody ever expects burlap.

The final challenger seems unfazed: the most feared veteran on the Gift-Wrapping circuit … “White on White on White” Wendy! Wendy has wrapped her gifts in what appears to be … the scalpel-cut pages of a first-edition copy of The Remains of the Day, written by the 2017 Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro!

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Each page has been artificially aged using black wakoucha tea, and sashed with accordion-folded calico-cream tissue-paper! And check out the gift-tag! Ivory-white paper glued onto antique-white mounting, tied on using bone-white cord, with a personalised message stitched in eggshell-white cotton!

White on white on white … ON WHITE! The match is over, folks, we’re all done in Living Room Stadium! Wait … hang on a sec … Ruthless Rustic Raffia Rachel is making a comment: “Oh I love the giftwrap, Wendz. Did you get the idea off Pinterest? I definitely saw something like it on Pinterest!!”

A devastating blow. Wendy reels backwards, stunned. It’s carnage on the couch! Stop the match! SOMEBODY PLEASE STOP THE MATCH!!!!

The teapot whistle toots just in time, and everyone heads off to get a cup of tea. They will return soon for the unwrapping. It must be done slowly, steadily, surgically, so that every scrap of giftwrap can be repurposed, every pom-pom-topper can be cannibalised, every chalkboard gift-tag can be wiped clean and a new bird drawn on. A tinier, more adorable one.