Are gift bag the way to go or not?

It depends on how the giver feels about it. If they choose to use gift bags, they will feel better about it, but for people like me who love to do it ourselves, we will not.

How about you use both – Because wrappers make the gift look nice, and bags make it look Neat. So just wrap a gift and put it inside a bag. Works both ways. :)

They work well for me because I wrap gifts like a child.;)

I love gift bags, and get several year’s worth of use out of them. I find them to be both environmentally and economically more effective. I only wrap the the things that won’t fit into a bag. To me, wrapping isn’t worth the time it takes to make it nice, just to have the paper ripped off and strewn about the house, only to end up in the trash.

I use a combination – some wrapped gifts for the slower opening and some gifts bags for environmental and ease of use reasons.

My wrapping skills will never win any awards. (OK, maybe the 3M Most Tape Used award.)
Gift bags are great. You can prolong the opening process by tying the gift label on with ribbon that is passed through both handles. Never use a bow when a square knot will do. Hide the scissors.

I like using (and reusing) gift bags. But I like wrapping things too.

I love giving and receiving gift bags. When our kids were younger my mommy buddies and I gave gift bags back and forth at every birthday party. We even followed an unspoken rule not to fill out the little card attached to the bag. I still feel a knot in my stomach when one of my collection rips and on days like yesterday when my middle son grabbed a giant gift bag and jammed all of his stuffed animals in it.

I’d say my bounty of gifts are split equally between wrapped and bagged with tissue apper.

I happen to LIKE wrapping, am pretty good at it, love to get creative and colorful with the colors and contrasts, ribbons etc. and besides, half the fun is the cats diving into the tissue paper and tangling themsleves up in the ribbon.

It takes a village to wrap a gift over here. lol

I wrap most gifts, but I do use gift bags for oddly-shaped things because I rarely have boxes around. I think bags are fine, especially for people who are wrapping-challenged. Bags are also more environmentally-friendly, because they can be reused a number of times, though I had never really thought of it that way.

I start off with the intention of wrapping all the presents, making them look pretty…but you can tell when I am over this idea. That’s right, I break out the bags.

I rarely use them for my son, he still loves to tear through the paper. My daughter, she’s pretty laid back and doesn’t mind gift bags.

I love them for the ease of use, the re-useability, and the lack of waste. With tissue paper, you can make quite a pretty package. And some of them are sparkly.

I use new dish towels, reusable shopping bags, and newspaper.

I buy the shopping bags from my local vendors…book store, public library, supermarket. So it’s a double whammy.

I thoroughly enjoy spending time wrapping my gifts. Lots of ribbon and bows etc.
I only use gift bags for bottles of wine

In my family, it’s sometimes too much of an effort to even use a gift box/bag. I remember when I was younger I’d sometimes get a gift that was still in the shopping bag from the store, and nothing else. It’s super funny but I generally try to do a combination of gift boxes and wrapping, because I totally suck at making wrapping paper look pretty.

Oh crap, I just remembered I still have to go get a few gift bags for presents that are unwrappable. Thank you for asking this.

Gift bags are the lazy persons way of giving a gift without any love attached to it.

@john65pennington : Well, that’s just a poopy-head thing to say. Still can’t spell the raspberry noise

I think both are just fine. Let’s face it, some people just aren’t good wrappers. I wrap things in both ways, I’m a pretty good wrapper, but sometimes gift bags are just more convenient, and I definitely re-use them when I get them.

If you feel like you want to personalize a bag a little bit, get some of those brown paper bag kind of bags (that have been dyed red or green or blue) but have no decorations on them. Then you can draw or paint or stamp or glitter your own designs onto them.

A few years back, I made some custom wrapping paper for a friend (who liked my art-work) by getting a roll of Kraft paper and then I painted the designs on big, long sheets of paper. I think I did about 10 different designs. Very organic—finger painting and swoopy brush marks and drips and drops and whirls and whorls etc. My friend (who was also artistic but didn’t have any time to pull off this project) was thrilled and all of his presents looked super unique. You can also do this with the gift bags.

I used to do the fancy wrap… kraft paper, raffia bow, decorated with cinnamon stick and real holly…. Now I’m all about dollar store gift bags and more time for fun things.

I have trouble with the gift bags. They seem so impersonal. Although I can’t say I’ve never used them. Hell, when I was younger (and dirt poor) I have used just a regular paper shopping bag. Some how a trivial present in a nicely wrapped package seems nicer and more personal, than a bag. No matter how decorative it is.

Ummmmm…gift cards….... I wonder if a gift bag makes a gift less personal what about a gift card with a bow and no wrapped gift or bag at all, even less personal and cold?

@Hypocrisy_Central

Yeah. At least in my opinion. The gift card or even a cash, is not only impersonal but leaves no memory. If I give my son a $100 bill in a card, by the following month neither of us even know what he got, what he bought with it. Yes, it is probably more practical, it probably would help more than the sweater with reindeer on it, and it is unlikely to be returned or regifted, but it lacks something. Hell, even the sweater with reindeer on it, is remembered. No one forgets how you got it or where it came from.

I have lots of memories like that and wouldn’t trade any of them for a $100 bill.

I like bags because you can reuse them over and over and over again. I’d bet I could go to our hall closet and pull out a bag or two that I got a present in for my 8th or 9th birthday and has been used at least once every year since then. I have 2 friends that I’ve known since before then, and we give each other presents for birthdays and always use a bag. Then for my birthday I’ll get a gift in the same bag, and get the bag back. It goes back and forth for years. I love it because of all the memories.

Just a note to the nay-sayers up there about gift bags and gift cards. Gift bags are not impersonal, they’re just a different way to go. Some of us don’t like the waste of paper, some of us have arthritic hands, and some of us are very busy, we’d rather spend that time with our loved ones and doing other stuff. As for gift cards, I know my daughter is delighted to be able to pick out clothes, books, music herself, she’s of the age where her tastes change and it’s a real treat for her to be able to splurge a little without having to return or exchange. It really is the thought that counts. If you give a gift impersonally, it’s impersonal. If you give it with love, it’s lovely.

@JilltheTooth: I agree. I have fun picking out gift bags, but they make up about 30% of my wrapping. And yes, we reuse them…until someone finds on they really like want to keep.

iTunes cards are technically gift cards. My daughter LOVES them and also asked for a gift card to a book store. She’s just not sure what books she wants to read next, but that’s her favorite place to shop. She’s getting exactly what she wants!

Bag ladies, Bah humbug.

@Jaxk : Coal in your gift bag!!!

@JilltheTooth

I’ve actually gotten a lump of coal. One of those memories I cherish. Well, that one not so much. But they obviously put as lot of thought into it.

I’m old school, I love to be able to stack a variety of sizes of boxes.