The Cook Family

I remember mountains of wrapping paper strewn about the house Christmas morning, but hopefully my kids won't. Christmas generates enough packaging anyway that we don't need to put one more disposable layer on it. Bridgit's family has used fabric bags for some time, but for the past few years we have been using straight-up fabric. It is fun and we have developed a good stockpile of fabric and ribbon to use.
It started a while back when I discovered the art of Furoshiki which is kinda like origami, but for wrapping things. The Japanese Government has a handy PDF to show you how to wrap what shapes.
While we sometimes use those techniques, I usually do the standard paper techniques, but with fabric.
There are some tricks to making it look good:

• Don't use a blanket to wrap a book. The fabric pieces should be close to the size you need, anything more then twice the size you need can be difficult.
  
• Fold the fabric to the size you need it before you start wrapping. It doesn't need to be complete in-half folds; folding over a few inches to get the right size works well.
  
• Feel free to use pins or tape to keep the fabric taught.
  
• Disposable ribbon works well with cloth, too.
  
• Scrounge fabric from people who sew: my mother has an entire closet filled with fabric. Or check out the "remnants" at your local cloth 'n craft joint.
  

Bonus: cleanup is super easy.

UPDATE:Here are some photos of presents last year.