Santa Rosa woman’s ‘wrap party’ takes the sting out of holiday chore

Have you had enough of cookie exchanges and holiday cocktail gatherings where you just pray no one spills red wine on the upholstery?

Kathleen Ferrington had. So when someone three years ago complained to her about the hassle of wrapping gifts, it gave her an idea. Why not turn a dreaded holiday chore into a cause for celebration?

In 2019 she threw her first “It’s a Wrap Party.” Guests were invited to bring their purchases. She provided the rest: dozens of rolls of wrapping paper, colorful tissue, reels of ribbons, gift boxes, tape and scissors. Lots of scissors, to eliminate the frustration of hunting around for them. Scissors and tape have a way of getting lost in the mess.

“Women are frenzied multitaskers, a condition that accelerates during the holidays” Ferrington said. “I decided to change a holiday task that may often be onerous and solitary to create a gathering that makes gift wrapping creative, social and celebratory.”

Ferrington, who worked for many years for the Stanford Alumni Association, is an avid collector of art. Her near-century-old Georgian revival home in Santa Rosa (once home to Charles Tauzer, a state senator and member of the Santa Rosa Junior College’s first board of trustees) is filled with pieces she has collected and treasured over many years.

Ferrington concedes she’s not much of an artist herself. But she does love to scrapbook and craft.

“I can’t paint, sculpt or weave — I did take a stab at cross-stitch once — but I adore playing with the colors and textures of wrapping paper and ribbon, their punctuation provided by letterpress gift tags and cheery embellishments like jingle bells or tree ornaments,” she said.

The pandemic prevented her from having a second party. But she got so much positive feedback she is reviving “It’s a Wrap” this year and hopes to make it an annual tradition.

“Everybody can come and pick a tag or pick a paper and pick a ribbon and go to a table and wrap,” she said. “Some people come and don’t wrap at all and enjoy some hot cider or sparkling wine and get some ideas.”

Ferrington loves old-school stationary stores and seeks them out whenever she travels. So for the party she gives her home the look of a lovely paper emporium.

“Sadly, many of these wonderful boutiques have met their demise, between the rise of email and texting and, of course, the pandemic. Sonoma County is so very fortunate that we still have our wonderful Corrick’s,” she said of the venerable old stationery and gift store on Santa Rosa’s Fourth Street.

Her formal dining room is the station for metallics. The rosewood table is covered with rolls of shimmering satin ribbons in gold, silver and copper. Galvanized metal florist buckets of coordinating wrapping papers rise from the sideboard, all inspired by the room’s Venetian Murano glass chandelier above. Decorative jars are filled with an assortment of Christmas candies in honor of her father, Dr. Richard Ferrington, a retired dermatologist. Candy was his favorite Christmas treat, she said.

Ashley Alvarez, who was one of about 16 women who attended Ferrington’s first wrapping party, said it was a wonderful experience.

“I met people I never met before. We all got along well and made small talk and had food and drinks. The way she set it up, it literally felt like Santa’s workshop’s wrapping station. She had gift tags and wrapping paper and a bunch of small things you would never consider wrapping a gift with. I was amazed.”

Alvarez, who works at the Santa Rosa Museum, brought her gifts for The Giving Tree and some for family members. And when she was done, she offered to help out anyone else who had a bigger boatload of gifts to gussy up.

Ferrington provides not only paper but gift boxes and gift bags, knowing some people want to take an easy approach or just aren’t good with folding corners on paper.

For the wrapping paper, she turned her cheery breakfast room into “craft paper central” with bright rolls of green and red grosgrain ribbon. Plain brown craft paper may be embellished with patterned ribbons. She also made by hand many of the gift tags to coordinate with the different paper designs.

“I am a passionate scrap booker, so there are always paper scraps around. I use the odd bits and cut them in to gift tags, often using a paper punch in the shape of a Christmas tree, gingerbread cookie or snowflake. I especially enjoy adding colorful plaid ribbons to my tags.”

One thing she likes about craft paper, which is essentially the same paper used in brown paper bags, is that it’s recyclable.

Ferrington takes the opportunity to encourage her guests to be mindful about their wrapping supplies. She offers a chart put together by Recology that indicates what gift-wrapping items can be reused or recycled.

“Gathering wrapping supplies is, I think, 90% of the challenge of getting the task done,” she said. “I grew up in a household where I was always late to my classmates’ birthday parties because Mother was always frantically digging through drawers to find tape or a pair of scissors. Perhaps that is why I have entire drawers full of Scotch tape and dozens of pairs of scissors. Compensatory behavior, I suppose, but it makes for a great wrapping parties.”

As a giving touch, Ferrington likes to collect voluntary donations from guests for a favorite charity.

“This year I am asking my guests to bring items on the wish list provided by Our Village Closet (ourvillagecloset.org), a nonprofit that provides resources and goods for those in foster care, newborn to age 25,” she said. “Donations qualify to be in the raffle for a gift card that I am providing for our beloved Sixth Street Playhouse. I like to think everybody wins.

Tips for throwing your own Holiday Wrapping party.

“Think of your preparations for a holiday wrapping party as the equivalent of cooking’s ‘mis en place’ — everything in its place,” Ferrington said.

“You know the frustration when you start to prepare a recipe only to discover once you are up to your elbows in sticky dough that you don’t have butter or the right baking pan. The dilemma applies to the marathon of getting all those gifts wrapped. I have heard reports from dozens of friends that they were up to all hours on Christmas Eve secretly wrapping all the gifts for their family, only to find at 2 a.m. they were out of tape.”

Ferrington makes sure all the supplies are readily available. She has two rolling wood and metal carts that can be easily moved while all the supplies remain in place. She organizes everything in small galvanized buckets and places them in the cart.

She realized the carts are a better solution than using up her table space, which is needed for rolling out wrapping paper.

She discovered after her first party that she needed tall containers to hold the rolls of paper. She found that 16-inch high galvanized floral shop buckets work great and are available at Sequoia Floral on Santa Rosa Avenue. She forages wrapping paper throughout the year. One of her favorite sources is Home Goods in Petaluma.

Ferrington recycles holiday cards and other pieces of thin cardboard, such as the thin cardboard that comes in catalogs or online shipments, and remakes them into pretty gift tags. She also searches Etsy and Zazzle.

Ferrington invests in rolls of real ribbon. She is particularly fond of grosgrain, “not only because it makes for a beautiful gift package, but it is my hope that these ribbons are saved and used again,” she said. Locally, she also finds good buys on ribb

on at Michael’s, TJ Maxx and Marshall’s, Tuesday Morning, Corrick’s and Sequoia Floral for ribbon

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.