It's Christmas Eve! With tomorrow being Christmas, some American news sites are suggesting using the traditional Japanese method of wrapping gifts in cloth instead of paper this year. This method is called furoshiki, and it isn't as common in modern day Japan. Gifts wrapped with this method are actually quite pretty, but most of the articles I've read about this don't really know what they're talking about. So I had to research it myself. Furoshiki is a word that refers to the cloth used, as well as the wrapping technique used for it. It was created long ago, and gifts, as well as other things, were wrapped in beautiful cloth as a sign of wealth. Eventually it became more widespread before dying down in modern day society. Now it isn't used very often, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use it. The art of wrapping things this way is actually pretty amazing, and using cloth to wrap can be more eco-friendly. But what happens to the cloth after you use it? Traditionally the cloth is given back to the gift-giver to be used again in the future. Some people suggest using the cloths for other projects, but furoshiki cloths really are usually only used for wrapping things. Even though most people already have their presents wrapped by now, I wanted to talk about this anyways. This topic actually is quite interesting, and sometimes you can even see things wrapped in this traditional way in anime and manga. I recommend researching this more on your own if any of you are interested in this. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this blog post! Merry Christmas Eve and Happy Holidays!