In November 2021, a consumer poll by Slickdeals, an e-commerce company, found that on average Americans spent $56 on wrapping paper, bows, and ribbons for the winter holidays. But most Americans do not live on Long Island’s East End, where an accepted truth is that everything is just more expensive. How, then, to wrap your holiday presents with elegant flair, but without breaking the bank? As with many of modern life’s dilemmas, the answer lies in accenting the local and the natural.
Forage Your Flourishes
The best things in life are free, right? Save money by skipping the expensive ribbons and tacky tags. Instead, forage for seashells, driftwood, and clippings of holly and fir greenery. A stroll on the beach at Ditch Plain or Lazy Point should do the trick for some clam and scallop shells, maybe even some driftwood. Gently rinse the sand off and let dry completely before using these in your wrapping.
Hedges of holly and fir won’t miss a few small branches if snipped properly, but before you take scissors to your neighbor’s tree or bush, be sure to ask permission. ’Tis the season for neighborly kindness, after all.
Recycle, Repurpose
In 1965’s The Sound of Music, Julie Andrews, now of Sag Harbor, famously sings about one of her favorite things: “brown-paper packages tied up with strings” (with apologies in case the song is now stuck in your head). She wasn’t referring to the supermarket grocery bags that have largely replaced plastic in recent years, but these just so happen to make great wrapping paper, and at 5 or 10 cents a bag — when you’ve forgotten to take your reusable bags into the store — you won’t find cheaper wrapping anywhere else. Newsprint is also a sustainable and abundant gift-wrapping option when you’re cutting costs, and waste, this holiday season.
One of the best parts about these materials is that they create a canvas for you to transform with hometown flourishes like shells and greenery. Using a pencil, lightly write a loved one’s name on a clean, dry clam or scallop shell, then carefully trace over it with a Sharpie marker or paint pen. When that’s dry as well, line the inside edges with glue and press it on to the wrapped gift. Voila — it’s nature’s gift tag.
This wrapping aesthetic also pairs well with simple brown or white twine, which you can find in hardware stores. A trick is to find a shell with a hole worn in its base (or gently drill one) and thread the twine through it just before you tie any knots.
Hometown for the Holidays
When you do want something fancier than brown paper bags or last week’s East Hampton Star, it’s great fun to shop for adornments at East Hampton’s Golden Eagle art-supply store or the Sag Harbor Variety Store. These are a gold mine for the basics you’ll need to wrap the season in holiday cheer, and your dollars mean a lot to mom-and-pop shops in the slower winter months.
Golden Eagle sells marvelous marbled and printed paper at $8.95 per 20-by-30-inch sheet — which, if you intentionally avoid taping them to death, are sturdy enough to be reused later on — as well as tubes of dimensional paint for $4.95 each that you can use for names, outlines, pops of color, and other accents. (Bonus! The shop also sells intricate, hand-beaded holiday ornaments made by the artist Michael Weisman, so you can stock up on stocking stuffers while you’re there.)
The Sag Harbor Variety Store carries postcards and magnets that make neat little gift tags, like a picture of the Big Duck in Flanders all decked out for Christmas or the windmill on Long Wharf. These are especially great for gifts you’re sending to out-of-towners. Plus, the variety store’s selection of elegant ribbons outdoes any big-box craft warehouse, and there are also stickers and baubles that children can easily use to adorn plain brown-paper packaging or newsprint.
Potato-Farm Fancy
Nothing says “South Fork” like a big ol’ potato from Foster Farm or Amber Waves. When you stock up on spuds for the big holiday dinner, make sure to grab a few extras for potato printing. Yes, potato printing — just like you did back in grade school. Now that you know how to safely handle a knife without the supervision of an adult, slice your potato in half lengthwise (be sure to wash the dirt off first) and carefully use a paring knife to carve a shape or design into the raw flesh of the potato. The simpler the shape, the better the outcome will be. Think: Christmas tree, dreidel, or star.
Use a flat foam paintbrush to apply an even layer of acrylic or tempera paint to the design, then test it out by pressing it once or twice on a piece of scrap paper first. Once you get used to the mechanics of it, reapply paint and press it onto your brown paper bags or newsprint to leave behind an impression. Repeat to create a pattern, then let dry completely before wrapping a gift with your unique creation.