Our family tradition of wrapping presents in fabric gift bags began as little brown paper bags. When my parents were first married in 1942, they lived in a basement apartment, the ceiling crisscrossed with pipes. For one of Mom’s birthdays, when Pop couldn’t afford much, he got her a bunch of little gifts, “Ning-A-Nings,” as we call them. He put them in little brown paper bags and hung them with string on the pipes. When Mom came home from work, she was greeted with all these little bags of surprises. She loved it! We had paper bag birthdays from that point on! Read More