Put all that heavy reading to good use
 
This sound familiar? Gift is purchased. Gift sits in closet or under bed for days (weeks?). Gift is finally wrapped (poorly) on Christmas eve. Next morning, gift wrap is shredded into a million pieces and thrown into pile on floor. Mom says she will recycle gift wrap but everyone knows she throws it away. Life of gift wrapping actually around gift: ten hours tops.

Solution: save a tree or two and a buck on expensive gold leafed silky tissue paper and use that stack of New York Times (or Posts, we don't judge here at Shift) sitting in the corner. Get creative. Grab the Victoria's Secret insert and spiff up that box with mom's flannel PJs. Dad likes sports. Wrap his new tie in last week's ball scores. Point is, nobody really cares what a gift is wrapped in, just that it IS wrapped. (But don't use the business section unless you absolutely have to. Somehow that's just tacky.)

If you just can't bring yourself to use newspaper, there are some recycled gift wrapping alternatives. And we know just where to get them.

Tip #23 Caveat: You're going to need a lot of paper to wrap that eGO cycle you just bought, so maybe think about a big ribbon instead.