One night, the TV was blasting a Christmas movie as I tinkered on house stuff, and I kept hearing a commercial for an upcoming rap battle show. I finally looked up to see that it was actually Wrap Battle – a show on the Freeform network about gift wrapping.

My gift-wrapping skills are sad and pretty basic, and my nieces and nephews have endured questionable wrapping practices for years. My theory had always been that kids don’t care about the wrapping. They’re just happy to get presents and rip up paper. Meanwhile, my sister was always horrified that I never put bows on wrapped presents. But since I was either mailing the gifts or hauling them on a long car drive, I justified it by imagining my bows would have been flattened. As they got older, I was a bit more relieved that I could simply use gift bags without too much trouble.

You can imagine how intrigued I was with a show featuring competitive gift-wrapping. How many of us have those friends and family members who meticulously measure paper, cut super straight lines, and line up the ends to match? I am not one of those people.

I admit I watched all six episodes of Wrap Battle and realized that I can "Auntie Up" my wrapping game. Pinterest is full of simple, cute and innovative ideas for wrapping gifts for kids and adults. I picked up a few ideas from the show that I could downsize for my own skill level.

The last couple of years have been challenging for my family and myself, and since many of my nieces and nephews are also young adults and teens, I wanted to increase the wonder and excitement of the holidays for all of us.

Don’t worry, Aunties. You don’t have to become an extraordinary and meticulous gift wrapper to add some flair. Here are a few ideas to try:

Jazz up simple, plain gift bags. Make reindeer faces by gluing on googly eyes, a red pom-pom, and adding a couple of candy canes for antlers.

Add a giant letter. Pick up cardboard letters matching the kids’ initials, snowflakes, stars, or other shapes and fasten them to the gifts for their name tags.

Light it up. Use battery-operated lights as ribbon on a gift.

Use sweet decorations. Fasten lollipops or other candy to the package. Tie a ribbon around the middle of small bags of candy to make them look like bows.

Get a little artistic. Use plain white or brown paper and get out the markers. Draw a few pictures, write their names, or gooey Auntie messages. Not artistic? Use stickers.

Make gift cards exciting. Most of my older kids love gift cards, and they’re not exactly the most exciting option for gift wrapping. For my nephew and his wife, I bought a pretty box they could use and will put gift cards inside. Another option I saw was to hang gift cards on the tree or a small tree.

Stuff gift cards inside soft socks, art kits, or weirdly shaped boxes filled with rocks or pennies to throw them off. For a few years, I taped gift cards to Ramen for a couple of my kids who loved the stuff and wrapped up the Ramen noodles.

It’s pretty simple to add some flair to your gift packages this holiday season. And that’s a wrap, Aunties! Have a great holiday season.

Photo: Veja