The Mad Wrapper1 (aka TMW) can be described as an eccentric “Secret Santa” who visits our house every Christmas to distribute gifts. The gift itself might (or might not) be normal, but the tag on top of the gift is never normal. To open your present, you must solve a puzzle, control a gadget, or maybe contort an optical illusion.
It’s like: for every Christmas (uninterrupted for more than 30 years) The Mad Wrapper has turned our house into an inescapable “escape room” experience. Read More
This page was updated recently the archived version can be found here: The Mad Wrapper — archived front page
Timeline
This Thinking Man is a "lamp" contemplates a key inserted in a box at his feet. An LED lights up a face embedded in the shade to indicate who's key was inserted. is made from PVC pipe, some 3D printed shapes, simple electrical switches, wires and LEDs. It resembles a…
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A golf ball musically rolls and bounces down the ramps until it is deposited into a special bin. If the bin has your name on it, the gift is yours! Brought back from 1996 by popular demand!
A robot manipulates a genuine Rubik’s Cube help insure that we each receive the correct gift. Type in a code name and click “Solve”. When the robot is done twisting and clattering, the cube comes to rest with a person's initials on the front.
Attached to each gift under the tree is a tag baring a cryptic message etched into a 3d-printed tag. Place the reader on top and the message, which was always showing in plain sight, is revealed.
Find a gift with a marshmallow on it and feed it into the tiny fireplace provided by TMW. A ghostly floating head will appear from the flames. If it looks like you, open your gift!
TMW hacked a 1930's vintage telephone. Dial a number to cause a name tag to blink. The person wearing this name tag gets a gift!
TMW created an iPhone App. Cubes fall from the sky to land on the table or roll to the floor. The cubes are blockhead photos of a person in the room. Use your iPhone (or one provided by a friend) to see the action in full 3D Augmented Reality.
A 3-foot Christmas tree decorated in colored lights. Find an ornament on a gift and hang it on the tree. The light change color and slowly write someone's name.
On a bright sunny Christmas, tilt the piece of glass toward the window. Etched into the surface is a person's name. It's a scratch hologram!
Hidden in plain sight, you will need a UV blacklight to read the invisible ink handwriting on the package.
Put on the special 3D goggles and your name pops out of the paper. It is your turn to open a gift!
It's a collaborative game of Rock-Paper-Scissors! Everyone gets a deck of cards. Play them in order. If your card shows "Scissors" and everyone else is "Rock", you have "lost" the game. Grab your consolation prize: the gift with the worst-place ribbon.
Work your way through solving a jigsaw puzzle only to discover that there are missing pieces -- which is good for a change! The holes in the puzzle reveal a person’s initials.
Tilt a block of layered plexiglass according to the color on the gift tag to join 3D embedded features. A name is revealed as if written on a piece of paper.
The image changes based on the viewing angle. Rotate the lenticular to the correct angle to find out if the gift is yours!
Play a bizarre game of bad chess indicated by moves on a card attached to a package. When the game ends, the pieces that remain stand in formation saluting a dignitary with their initial(s).
TMW hacked a toaster. Put your bread in the correct slot. Wait for it... Pop! The toast comes out imprinted with a person's two initials front and back!
Holes are drilled into two pieces of plywood. When positioned properly and held to the light, a person’s initials shines through.
A deck of marked cards is inscribed with a person's name on the side. Sort the cards in Bridge order to unscramble the name.
Gifts are tagged with a very long thin magnet. A message is encoded into the magnetism itself. Party goers decode it by passing it under a special green piece of plastic film.
Place a plate of pancakes into a machine and crank to the selected setting. The result: pancakes monogrammed in powdered sugar, someone's initials. Two for the price of one: the person gets a gift to open and a pancake to eat!
In 1999, Tiger HitClips was top-ten on the kids favorites list. (Britney Spears and NSYNC were the best!) TMW hacked the tiny music player to speak a phrase that reveals the gift winner!
Cardboard tags are decorated with rhinestones to spell a person’s name in braille. To one-up the challenge, this gift exchange could take place in a 100% darkened room!
Three foot rails on a pegboard route a golf ball into a labeled bin based on instructions found on a gift.
Insert a floppy drive into your computer, run a cable another computer. Run DeLorme GPS software to simulate a trip across America. Destination: a town with the same name as a person in the room!
Shapes on a sheet of paper attached to a gift are numbered. A set of assorted crayons is provided, each labeled with a number. People have a grand time filling in the blanks to decode the message.
Cross your eyes and stare long enough .... 3D letters pop out from the card to spell a person's name. It's a stereogram!
A marble sorting toothpick machine drops a marble a bin labeled with a person's name.
In a dark room, wave the magic wand and chant “Umba gadda boomba, …”. A person’s name appears in mid air. Persistence of vision.
Hidden in plain sight! Labels on gifts are so distorted that no one could read the words on gifts sitting under the tree for more than a week.
A balloon holds the gifts from view. Pop the balloon and the gifts come tumbling out! Kind of silly.
Footnotes
- Little know fact: The Mad Wrapper’s first name is actually The but normally goes by their middle name Mad. ↩︎