• Ingenuity - Sometimes an interesting package is more striking than a classically beautiful one. We can marvel at how on earth that startling collection of shapes was ever successfully held together! Or at the unique design of the gift tag or other trimmings. ...Something ingenious adds another layer to a gift by sharing a bit of the giver’s personality

(Perhaps I should mention here that even though a gift’s packaging might not be particularly beautiful, ingenuity can put the reusable bits together in beautiful - or clever, etc. - ways!)

• Suspense - As I said, the suspense of a gift might begin even before the package is seen... with suggestion, maybe; with clues; even just with the look in the eyes or the tone of voice of the person who presents it! The packaging itself can carry this through (or be the first intimation of it).

The gift might be disguised (see Styles of Wrapping/Decorating below). Or it could have an indistinguishable noise (or smell!) that intrigues. The eccentric packaging material (fuzzy fabric?!) might lead to all sorts of odd surmises about the contents! ...Fun.

• Anticipation - Yes, perhaps a gift might arouse unsuspenseful anticipation... as when the packaging gives an obvious clue to what’s waiting inside. ...That sure looks and hefts like a book, or looks and sounds like a jigsaw puzzle!; or, the picture of a horse pasted on the outside might lead one to wonder what on earth horse-related could be inside a long tube... (And if your gifts are displayed under the tree for days before opening time, every time a child looks under it gives a bit of a thrill - which is part of the gift.)

Or if you know that someone always gives you the same type of gift, the anticipation is funneled down to a narrow range of speculation... That doesn’t mean the receiver might not be as delighted to contemplate it as if she had no idea that it was a beautiful calendar, or the expected tin of cookies - which calendar or cookies she can look forward to enjoying is fun to anticipate too. (Or maybe you know which, and your mouth is watering because you do!) Also, if you can expect an original packaging job from a certain person, the anticipation begins even before you open the brown cardboard carton he mailed you!

• Humor - A gift of humor is a precious gift indeed! The packaging of a gift might bring laughter in many ways... There could be a funny picture on it. It could be a goofy shape - or the shape of some particular goofy thing. (Have you ever been handed a present in the shape of a carrot, for instance? - nor have I, darn it!... Maybe I’ll do vegetable gifts one year.) Or inside something oddball - like one of the giftee’s shoes? Maybe the wrapping paper is covered with Easter bunnies - or even has jokes on it. Or a real disguise... how about Groucho glasses? Or it could be that the humor in the packaging of the gift is a message only for the recipient (an in-joke, as it were).

• Nostalgia - Wrappings/trimmings evocative of another era can be beautiful or simply fun. Many manufactured wrapping papers are of this nature (one of my favorites I picked up a number of years ago was covered with matchbook covers from the Fifties). Retro, Victorian, ethnic... even something more "psychological", like pages from an old high school yearbook (you find them in rummage stores from time to time - fascinating!). Shifting someone from her own world into another for a moment can be a very memorable gift! (Wouldn’t it be fun to have a different household theme each year? - all the home-wrapped gifts to match the other house trimmings that exude the ambience of the Edwardian era... or the Sixties?)
    

Let’s take a look at what we might have to work with in the tangible part of the gift...