Pluggers by Rick McKee for December 19, 2022

But pluggers can’t iron out their own wrinkles!

We use bags for our presents. Saves time and A LOT of money. ;D

Weird.

and many of us don’t waste money on wrapping paper, either.

Pluggers use the funny pages from the newspaper…

One of old Newspaper’s many uses is Wrapping Paper ;-)

16 years retired from the mineral exploration business, and I still have a few maps left for wrapping paper.

You should iron your wrapping paper from the back side so the ink doesn’t transfer to your iron…

Fed Inflation Fighting Idea

OMG. My grandmother did that. She threw a fit if you unwrapped anything “incorrectly.”

We had to throw out our paper a few years ago because it was crumbling — some of it was from my high school years. We use bags that we tie with ribbon. The challenge is to find gift tags large enough to cover the tags that are already there or find a bag that has the right ‘To and From’. As for ironing — I retired from ironing when I retired from work.

My paternal grandmother, immigrated to the US from Germany with her family in the 1880’s when frugality was the norm. The same during the depression with three young boys. I was born in 1950 and every Christmas that I can remember, she would gather up the wrapping paper and neatly fold it up; roll up the pieces of ribbon and gather the bows. We’d see them again next Christmas on her presents to us all. When she passed away in 1962, we found, not just the wrapping paper, ribbon and bows, but balls of short pieces of string, a ball of rubber bands, etc. Though not a hoarder as her house was neat as a pin, I don’t think she threw much out.

I would never try to iron newspaper…

Light starch, please.

As a former fireman – a good fire starter. Seen it!

LOL… don’t laugh, my Mom did this.

My wife used to buy Christmas paper in big rolls after the holidays and use them for the next season. We have so many partials that I started using them for masking when I spray paint.

Iron the back side so the pattern doesn’t smear.

what do they do with the rips?

My family recycled wrapping paper too! (But we didn’t iron it…)

I used to do this. My grandmother lived thru the Depression and she had a lot of influence on me. I’ve been in the habit of reusing many items; especially paper products. She taught me well.

I’m creeping towards 70 years of life, and I have NEVER seen this done by anyone in my large extended family. My father would have had a fit if anyone had even suggested it. Walt19 above is right – this is a bad idea. And imagine how people would feel having to explain to the fire department how the fire started! (Or even worse, not being in shape to explain anything!)

Re my comment above, I’ll admit that I’m a bit on the grouchy side. And I know that “Pluggers” is intended as lighthearted humor. However, I have found over the last week that I haven’t enjoyed the comic as much as I used to. It seems like Pluggers are most often portrayed as obese, sloppy, penny-pinching, and prone to excess. I’ll have to do an attitude check and see if I’m just being overly sensitive. Okay, enough of my drivel for now, lol.

Thanks for reminding me of my mom.

Wow, a partial flashback moment! As I was growing up, we were not allowed to be like other kids, and just go to town, and rip the paper off gifts! We had to very carefully separate them at the seams, fold the paper, and save it for the following year. Fortunately, we did not have to go this particular route, and iron it, anyway.

well, this is certainly a new wrinkle…

We are down to buying gifts for husband’s 2 nieces – aged 12 and 19 – and husband.

My niece and nephews are in their late 20s or early 30s so we don’t buy them anything. We don’t buy gifts for our sisters, their husbands or my mom.

And after decades of work and repeating constantly I have finally convinced husband not to waste money buying anything for me as there is nothing I need or want (this includes not buying me anything for birthday or anniversary). This took a number of decades as it was not easy to do due to the constant joking about wives saying they don’t want anything, then getting upset with husband when he did not buy them something big – what a stupid idea. Why waste money when someone does not want or need anything?

The last gifts I was getting for Christmas was I would buy my appointment book for work for the following year and he would wrap it and give it to me. Then I started using Lotus Organizer and synced it with my cell phone – a Palm Centro – the first “smart phone” and later a Blackberry – still have both and still sync to LO (in a virtual Win XP computer setup in my computers) as well as separately keeping a duplicate calendar in my Android phone as it can’t sync with LO.

As to wrapping paper – we use same for his niece’s gifts and I put his gifts (which he has bought) into decorative bags – which after he takes them out and acts surprised, are stored away for next year.