Gift Bag Etiquette

After two hours of women's bible study on Genesis Chap. 45 and the life of Joseph, it seems this was the only place left for our minds to wander to - gift bag etiquette. Not sure how we got there, but as three of us stood around closing the camp down after bible study we found ourselves sharing some sister time. It went a little like this . . .

Somehow we get on the topic of the joy and beauty of the gift bag. It is reusable. It comes in the perfect size for everything. It comes in the perfect color. They aren't expensive. Easy to store. We reminisced and rejoiced over "the gift bag".

A few weeks ago my husband and I were giving a gift to another couple. I grabbed the gift bag - he grabbed a box and wrapping paper. I could not begin to understand why we would go to that trouble. He could not figure out why I would want to use the bag. Apparently, some men, maybe all, do not use gift bags and don't particularly care to receive their gifts in one. If it is going to be in a bag, then just leave it in the Wally-world bag and move on. If you are going to present it as a real gift, then it must be wrapped. All my friends and I could figure out is that men like to dig into things, tear things with their hands and that pulling the fluffed up tissue out of the top of a pretty gift bag was not manly enough. Who knew?

Next we went into tissue paper protocol for the gift bag. Filler tissue paper, if not too mangled, is reusable as more filler for another gift bag. There is a limit on that, however, and at some point it must be thrown out. The filler tissue in the top of the bag that sticks out must be fresh. We all agreed that we have not and will not resort to ironing our tissue paper for cryin' out loud. If it's wrinkled - it's filler.

The tag on the bag - off limits for writing your or anyone else's name on. It is just there to be pretty. Not for actually using as a name tag. Heaven forbid someone does use it without thinking, well at least you can tear the thing off. We all seemed to understand this unspoken rule quite well.

Then I said it. I told of someone who had actually written my name on the inside of the gift bag. Gasp! The other two women simultaneously gasped out loud with the same number of decibels at the thought of it. You DO NOT WRITE NAMES ON THE GIFT BAG! Oh, the sheer thought of a good gift bag being sent to the trash can before it's time was truly up.

We were all in agreement on the gift bags and the proper rules for using them. And then someone asked - how do we know this stuff? Women are not taught the gift bag rules. They just know. We have a gift bag etiquette gene somewhere in our makeup. Thank you Lord.