His big day has come, but no one will notice him. Except if it doesn’t look good enough. It is the secondary of the Three Kings day. It only gets a minute’s attention before it ends up in the trash. And yet it also has a history.
As in the movies, during Christmas holidays there’s also an essential supporting actor to make the plot a success, especially today. And as is often the case with secondary ones, no one realizes that it exists until it is missing. Then everyone misses him.
Imagine Three Kings Day without wrapping paper it is impossible but it is rarely given the attention it deserves. It generously does its job of keeping the mystery of knowing what presents Their Majesties will have left us that night. No matter how old the recipient of the package is, for a few moments the excitement of unwrapping it can take everything. There are those who proceed delicately and try not to break it, while others -especially the smallest ones- moved by the nerves of the moment have no contemplation and, without regard, leave it to shreds.
Wrapping gifts is an art and increases the expectations of those who receive them. A good package is always exciting. Sometimes even too much, because experts say that disappointment comes later if the content does not match the quality of the packaging. Be that as it may, like everything that is part of our life, it also has an origin. Indeed, wrapping paper has its history.
It does not take the intelligence of Sherlock Holmes to discover that for this product to exist it is essential that there is paper, which was invented by the Chinese more than two thousand years ago. From there came the first information about wrapping with paper; although previously in the area of present-day Korea there was already a tradition of covering those present with a silk cloth called Bojagi (and in Japan later a similar technique called Furoshiki).
In Europe the paper came from Asia via Arabia and became popular during the Middle Ages. At the time it was a luxury product, which was reserved for official documents and cardboard boxes were made at most. It was with the Industrial Revolution that everything changed.
In the 19th century, the economy began to transform irreversibly. The first place where it was appreciated was in the United Kingdom and that was also where the habit of gift wrapping became popular as we currently do. Thanks to industrialization, the paper industry was modernized and was able to produce better and cheaper. It was first noticed with the proliferation of postcards to congratulate Christmas and later when the decorative paper that accompanied them became larger to cover the gifts. Thus, in Victorian times, lThe upper classes began to become involved and, as often happens, the rest of the population wanted to imitate what the rich did. Thus, between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was commonplace for most British people.
A few years later, from the United States, came the definitive push for this fashion to consolidate irreversibly and everyone will incorporate it. During the 1917 Christmas campaign, at the stationery store run by brothers Joyce Clyde and Rollie Hall in Kansas City, Missouri, they ran out of the green, red, and white tissue paper that everyone used to prepare gifts. As an emergency solution they came up with use the paper destined for the inside of the envelopes they made. To his surprise, people were enthusiastic about the proposal. The following year they tested it again and repeated the sales success. One year could be a coincidence, two no longer. So In 1919, his company began manufacturing and selling decorated paper intended solely for gift wrapping. They were completely right and that explains part of the commercial success of their company, Hallmark, also famous for its greeting cards that are now sold in supermarkets in the United States and around the world.
Currently, wrapping paper moves large amounts of money. In 2015, for example, the US spent $ 3.2 billion for a material that is only used for sixty seconds. Literally, the minute of glory of the great secondary of Christmas.
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An environmental problem
There are more and more voices that warn of the problem that wrapping paper poses for the environment. On the one hand because of the amount of waste it generates (you just have to go to the blue containers these days) and on the other because its manufacturing process also has ecological costs. That is why alternative solutions such as recycled paper are being sought.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com