If you happen to cut a piece of paper that looks to small for the box, save it!  The diagonal method will rescue you.

I am the worst gift wrapper ever, so I was looking for a little help on the web and ran across this little gem.  Twenty-seven million views can't be wrong.  She's good.

We've all probably suffered from an error in judgment and cut a piece of paper that's too small for the box we're about to wrap.  I've done it at least five times this holiday season, and each time I started over by cutting a new piece.  But apparently, if we'll just rethink the geometry involved, that first piece will work just fine.  It turns out the diagonal method will rescue us, and it's just a matter of turning the box so it's at a 45-degree angle and rolling it until the paper covers it.  Who knew.

And there is hope for those awkwardly-shaped gifts too.  I bought my 10-year old a Perplexus maze game, and that's shaped like Saturn and it comes in a box with no sides, so it's flat on the top and bottom, and round on the sides.  If I press the paper to each edge, she's totally going to know what it is.  But if I use one of the gift-wrapping hacks, there is a way to create a square bottom out of wrapping paper, and the sides will be loose and they won't reveal what's inside.

And for small things like matchbox cars, nail polish, and pocket-sized stuffed animals, we should be using a Pringles can.  If we wrap the can in holiday paper, the receiver won't be able to tell that their gift is sitting where Sour Cream and Onion potato crisps used to be.  Their gift may smell a little like chips, but that's a small price to pay to have an interesting container holding it.

With hacks like these, we'll be able to level up our gift-wrapping game.  I might still skip the tags and just write "To" and "From" with a Sharpie right on the wrapping paper, but at least the gift itself will look better.  It's the thought that counts anyway, and nobody needs a tag to get that point across.

Gift-wrapping can be fun if we're sitting by a cozy fire with Christmas music going and there's a little spiked egg nog involved.  And now we'll be better at it than we ever thought we could be.  Happy holidays!

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