I think our gifts were wrapped when we were younger but as we got older, mom felt it was such a waste of money and paper to wrap them. So she was one of the original "gift bag" people by using paper grocery bags stapled closed. (Man, I wished she would have patented that 'gift bag' idea.)
Because I grew up with that thinking I naturally carried it over to my boys. They still kid me about being "cheap" for not wrapping their gifts but I told them I used the extra money to buy them a better gift. Would they have rather had the fancy paper? Of course they said "NO!" :-)
Thanks for the walk down memory lane.