Mom Books Hotel Room To Get Privacy for Wrapping Presents

Anyone in a family home knows how difficult it is to get privacy, and it’s even more complicated the closer you get to Christmas. With presents lurking around every corner, kids get hyper-vigilant. However, this TikToker may have found the solution to this seasonal problem through a unique methodology.

The Present-Wrapping Video

Laura McKelligan, 42, posted to her TikTok (@mckelligan) about booking herself into a hotel for a weekend and spending it relaxing and wrapping presents. It was the perfect situation to get away and enjoy a bit of alone time.

Naturally, the post blew up, and millions of people watched it. Hundreds of thousands commented about how innovative her method for present wrapping was. It was something many of the other parents in the comments wanted to follow.

A Relaxed Wrapping Atmosphere

In the video, Laura checks into the hotel, and we see her get up to the room, then there’s a timelapse of her wrapping the presents. At the end, she’s relaxing with a bag of crisps and a drink, with a pile of finished presents on the other bed.

Between the drinks, the tortillas, and the takeout, Laura seemed to have cracked the secret to present-wrapping in a busy household. Apparently, she’s been doing this for two years since it seems to work. As one commenter stated, it beats wrapping gifts in a guest bedroom!

A Lot of Support For This Method of Wrapping

Based on the comments from the video, it’s clear that she had a lot of people interested in her discovery. “GIRL. I’ve been trying to wrap presents for a week and still not done,” one commenter stated, clearly impressed by Laura’s approach to the problem.

In households with many kids, it’s usually a lot of trouble to get any time to wrap presents. Even hiding them carries with it a chance that the kids will find the presents way before they’re meant to open them. Laura’s wrapping weekend might become a new standard for kid-heavy households.

Taking The Time Away From the Family

Laura’s first wrapping weekend happened in 2021 to escape the house’s hustle and finish her gift wrapping. “I think I just needed a little break,” she says. “It was just mayhem last year coming out of everything that was going on in the world, so it was a getaway but also a chance to wrap.”

To ensure that she wasn’t too far away in case of an emergency, she picked a hotel that was relatively close to her home. She also chose a spot close to her favorite restaurant so she could get takeout anytime she wanted.

Not Sure About Social Media

According to Laura, she didn’t intend to post this video to TikTok. She wasn’t sure about the backlash she would get for leaving her kids and hubby to fend for themselves while she took some private time to wrap the presents.

What she didn’t expect was how many people would be in support of what she was doing. “I didn’t expect so many people, and everyone was so nice. It made me feel so good and was just really neat,” Laura said.

Not Needing to Mess Up Her House

As anyone who’s ever done gift wrapping for Christmas knows, it’s mayhem once the wrapping starts. With so many presents and limited wrapping paper, it’s all about ensuring you have enough resources to get the job done. And that’s why they’re usually littered around the room.

Since she was renting a hotel room, there was no worry about Laura messing her house up. There was no concern about leaving ribbons and tape and ends of wrapping paper everywhere. She could focus on the wrapping and worry about the cleanup later.

A Few Concerns About Logistics

Laura had a lot of presents to wrap, and as many of the commenters noted, it would be a lot of trouble to cart those presents up to the room. Some stated that they didn’t think it’d be worthwhile for them to consider it since they would have to wrap even more presents.

Laura’s response was to state that she just used a bag to get the presents up to the room. Once there, it was simple to start wrapping them and sticking the bows on them. While the time lapse didn’t tell us how long she actually took to wrap the presents, she seemed to manage it reasonably quickly.

Switching It Around Might Work, Too

One of the commenters on the post suggested that she would have been better off sending the family off to a hotel room and doing the wrapping in her own house. Others said that, logistically, that made a lot more sense.

If you’ve got a lot of presents to wrap, and carrying them may take several trips to the hotel room, using your own house as the wrapping location might be better. It’s a familiar setting, and you can even order takeout when you want it. The hardest part would be convincing the family to spend a weekend away from home.

No More Midnight Wrapping Sprees

Many visitors to Laura’s post noted that they would spend hours wrapping gifts in the early morning, taking a lot of time to finish them. Many said that they’d routinely face wrapping at midnight, sometimes in freezing cold temperatures, just to avoid kids finding them working.

Laura’s approach would give those parents the support they need to avoid midnight wrapping sessions. Some commenters went so far as to call her a genius for coming up with such a unique and exciting way to get something like this done.

What’s Your Wrapping Story Like?

If you’re stunned at how simple the solution to wrapping in a kid-filled house is, you’re not alone. Yet, despite this “simple” solution, there’s a lot to consider that might not work for you. If you have kids who ask many questions, they’ll probably figure out your strategy.

Booking a hotel for wrapping is also something that you can do if you have the extra funds. If you don’t or don’t want to splurge on a hotel room for a weekend, you’ll just have to find another way to get your wrapping done. In any case, it’s a matter of risk and reward.