The Saran Wrap Ball

A post from Kelli–

You’ve probably seen videos on Facebook that feature a saran wrap ball with little gifts inside.  It probably looks like a hot mess and is quite loud.  Believe it or not, both of these things are very true!

This is the second year that we’ve done the saran wrap ball and it was a fun time both times.  The ball can be as cheap or expensive as you would like, but beware that the cost can accumulate quickly.  If you know ahead of time that you want to make a ball, you could purchase things over a period of time or even ask everyone to bring a few things to be added in.  This year, mom had accumulated a few things and given them to me to add to the ball.  I also grabbed a few things that we used to complete it.  Things like gum, giftcards, socks, chapstick, etc are perfect.  Last year, we did it as a last minute thing and mom had a few gift cards that she didn’t know the balance of that we added in.  Because I’m a bit last minute, I ended up making the ball on the way down to Christmas in Cedar Rapids.

Also–As far as how much saran wrap you’ll need?  I’d start with a 200 foot roll and see how far that goes.  Maybe another 100 foot roll will be needed, however it depends on how many goodies you have to include and how tight you wrap the ball.

I started with a little bit bigger item-In this case, a package of Ghiradelli chocolates–Caramel ones that Jason picked out.  I wrapped them up pretty tight with a few different pieces of saran wrap.  One important thing to keep in mind is that when adding goodies to the ball, it is important to use shorter pieces of saran wrap, otherwise once someone starts unwrapping, they’ll end up with all of the goodies.

I kept adding things in–Cough drops, gift cards, lighters, you name it–and wrapping and wrapping.  I thought that I was about done, but then realized that we had no dice.  After talking to Buck, he told me he didn’t have dice either, so we were on the hunt.  We stopped at a gas station and had no luck.  We ended up driving through a town just a few miles north of his house that had a Dollar General right off of the road, so we stopped in and I grabbed a few more things–Extension cord, lotion, etc–to add in.

And I kept wrapping!

Finally, it was done!  The way we play is that the person behind the unwrapper has two dice and once they roll doubles, they get the turn to be the unwrapper.  We’ve done it before where you had to wear gloves, however it was a bit harder this year, because Buck had an oven mitt and a hot pad holder that we were going to use.  While they were grippy, they were a bit harder to use, so we went without which was good because it was difficult as it was.  Another thing that is nice about hte ball is that everyone gets a few goodies and is able to have fun.

Even Jason who can be a bit of a fuddy duddy thought it was fun last year and wanted to do it again this year!