I like them, they are convient. Especially when things are hard to wrap.

I love to wrap gifts, in fact. To earn extra money throughout college, I hired myself out to wrap gifts at Christmas time. I had so much fun, and found the odder the shaped gift the more fun I had wrapping it. I loved adding bows, etc. Continue to do it to this day. I have mom's with small kids drop off their gifts, paper, boxes and name tags, and I do the rest. Then they come by a day or two before Christmas and pick them up, so the kids find no gifts around the house. I even have a special way I write the name of the kids and from Santa, so the hand writing looks different than if they get a gift from mom and dad, and the wrapping paper is always different.

We only use gift bags if there is no time to wrap, since I love to wrap gifts even more than I like opening them. It always reminds me of Christmas at Grandma Helen's (the best Christmases of my life).

My family has a tradition of one box under the tree is wrapped especially nice, ribbons, bows, foofoo, etc. that gift is never given a label. It is part of our Christmas season to guess who it is for, what it might be, "I hope it is....", "I hope it is mine", etc. Christmas morning, it is the last gift under the tree, and only after all other gifts are opened and oooed and ahhhhed over, only then is the secret told, and the lucky recipient gets to open it after everyone has a last guess at what it is. Yes, you may take our tradition and adapt it to your own celebration. Merry Christmas all!

Gift bags can be very economical and good for our environment because they can be used over and over.

I have to wrap... and actually enjoy it. I even go all the way to putting ribbon and bows on each package (not the premade bow from a bag of bows)

I think it is far more fun to analyze the wrapped packages and to be able to "rip" off the pretty paper. I must have fond memories of Christmas from childhood. :)

You betcha I use em! I also do the traditional wrapping. My dil's mom makes fabric bags of all size, and then ties them shut with fluffy pipe cleaners. They can be reused from year to year.,great to do when Christmas fabric is way on sale.

I make fabric bags that can be reused. I add outside pockets and sometimes inner zipper pockets.

I use gift bags for anything awkward to wrap, including shirts, anything fabric,etc... ( I have so many to shop for and it would be a hardship to find boxes for everything) Anything square or rectangular/easy to wrap gets the wrapping paper.

I love gift wrapping, but I admit that I do use a lot of bags. Using so much tissue bothers me sometimes so I try to recycle as much as I can. Our family uses a lot of bags AND WE HOLD ONTO THEM AND REUSE. It isn't unusual to see a birthday gift in a Christmas or Mother's Day bag. We all understand each other. It's become a family tradition and we try to remember who gifted in that bag.

This is just a quick tip for those who may not have thought about it. Did you ever have the right size box for a certain gift but had writing all over and you needed the box to mail or just wrap. You can reuse the box by carefully sliding a letter opener or knife to undo the flaps and folds. Flip and reverse and refold and tape what ever works to hold it together. I often use strong mailing tape. You can also staple in some cases. If you glue, you may want to clamp/hold it together til dry. Gorilla glue and E6000 needs to dry over night. I save certain size boxes like the Priority Mail you may have received.