If my wife and daughter bought me a locomotive for Christmas, I’m convinced that they would find enough wrapping paper to cover the thing from wheels to smokestack.  There would be a giant bow on top and the thing would be encircled with red ribbon. 

 The process of wrapping presents for Christmas for most families takes longer than your typical NFL season.  And I wonder why?   Why do we wrap presents at all?  Just think if we didn’t wrap presents.  We would save a forest of trees, billions of dollars and eons of time that could be devoted to more productive pursuits like playing golf.  I have an idea that could instantly change all that.   It would save billions of dollars, trees galore and that ever decreasing commodity — time.  

My idea is called “The Wrapping Cloth.”  What you do is buy some fancy, highly-decorative cloth squares of varying sizes, cover all of the presents individually with a wrapping cloth and then when the magic moment arrives, the recipient whisks the cloth away revealing a present!  It’s cheaper than paper in the long run and wrapping cloths can be handed down from generation to generation.  When families are gathered celebrating Christmas on the planet AC Bb 1 (which orbits  our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centuri), they will use old and venerable wrapping cloths (“This belonged to our family when they lived on Earth!”).   Wrapping cloths can be used for birthdays and even those mind-numbing experiences known as baby or wedding showers.   As it is now, my wife and daughter can discern a gift I’ve wrapped from across a darkened room (“Eeewww. . . did you wrap that?”).  With the wrapping cloth, I will be able to “wrap” presents with the experts. . . .     

Save mankind and send this one around. . . . .