The snowman paper lives on the top shelf of the hall closet, rolled tight around a cardboard tube that smells faintly of cedar and dust. Each snowman wears a red scarf and a slightly worried expression, as if they know they’re about to be torn apart. You haven’t used it since your niece was six. She’s fourteen now. You pull it down anyway.

The scissors make a clean zipping sound through the paper. Sharp scissors are one of life’s small luxuries. You measure with your eyes, not a ruler. Cut too soon. Now the paper’s short by two inches on one side. You could start over. You don’t.

Tape sticks to everything except what you want it to stick to. Your thumb, your sleeve, the edge of the table, itself. You pull off a piece and it folds over, adhesive to adhesive, useless. The next piece is too long. The third piece is perfect.

There’s a video online that shows how to wrap any gift in under fifteen seconds. Perfect hospital corners, invisible seam lines. The presenter’s hands move like a machine. The finished product looks like it came from a store.

Your package has a lump near the bottom where the paper overlaps. You cover it with a ribbon tied from an old toffee wrapper you saved because it was red and shiny.

The gift inside is a book. Slightly bent at the spine from being carried in a backpack. You don’t mention it when you hand it over. Neither does she.

Under the tree, the presents gather like relatives at a reunion—some crisp, some rumpled, one wrapped in newspaper with a sprig of pine tucked into the twine. The snowman paper shows at the edges, cheerful and slightly faded. Your nephew will tear through it in seconds on Christmas morning. But for now, it holds its secret.

The empty cardboard tube goes back to the closet. Next year there will be less paper, fewer snowmen. But they’ll wait.