Can't wrap a gift to save your life? Egypt Sherrod reveals her fail-safe gift wrapping trick

If you love real estate, you know Egypt Sherrod. But, while she's best known as host of HGTV's "Flipping Virgins" and its long running show, "Property Virgins," that's not all she does.

Sherrod also hosts Discovery’s “The White House Christmas Special" and “Urban Oasis” Dream Home Giveaways and, off-screen, is the CEO of the Atlanta-based Egypt Sherrod Real Estate Group.

When the holidays come around, Sherrod shifts her high standards toward an aspect plenty of people phone it in on: gift wrapping. According to Sherrod, beautifully wrapped packages are a family tradition.

"Tradition to me is family memories. It's not about gifts, it's not about things," Sherrod tells Yahoo Life as part of the Yahoo Life Holiday Home and Tell series. "It's about creating moments in time that you can always reflect on that sort of embed themselves in your consciousness."

Growing up, Sherrod says that the holidays were an "event" for her family where they gathered at her grandparents' house with eggnog, caroling and delicious food. One thing that also stood out for her was that her mother was "the gift wrapping guru."

Video Transcript

EGYPT SHERROD: In my profession of real estate, I have a motto that I would say, "the showing starts before people enter the door." You set the tone for the experience with curb appeal. Gift wrapping is the curb appeal of the holiday season.

When I was little, I would sit in amazement and watch some of the creations my mom made. No gift ever looked alike. Did you ever get frustrated knowing that you stayed up for like three hours wrapping gifts, and we just tore through it?

- Apparently no, because you all were so happy. You know, it was like that's the joy of the morning of Christmas watching your girls, you know, just run and tear it all apart and how happy you were to see it.

EGYPT SHERROD: So now I have my wrapped gift. And what I'm going to do is take some twine, wrap it several times around the gift first. I'm taking the little arborvitae. You're going to make it look like a Christmas tree. And I'm interweaving it in our strings. We saved our little piece of ornament.

Now truthfully, if you're not doing your demonstration in front of potentially millions of people, you might just tape it. I'm doing it in front of you. So I'm going to hot glue it, so I look like a genius. Look how adorable that came out.

I believed in Santa Claus until I think I was about 13. And he looked a lot like my dad. One of my fondest memories was waking up, and I think I had to be about six or seven years old. And I woke up, looked at the tree and my mom. It looked like she'd wrap the entire tree. There were adornments and gifts hanging off the tree.

I remember that. I remember the feeling. I know how much work now as a parent, as a mom, she had to put into it that night. It's sowed with love. I put that same effort into it for my children as well.

This is the snow, like you're going down a ski slope. It's adorable, right? And a great way to address an oddly shaped gift. But now when you put it under the tree, it looks like that. And you can see a little kid racing toward it.

This was wrapped by my 9-year-old for the first time. This is the first gift that she has ever wrapped. This bow is reused from last Christmas that was reused from the holiday before. We grab napkin holders and just embellished them a little bit and created these little goodies.

We got new wrapping paper, but we got it in bulk. And so I think I was able to wrap more than 22 gifts with one roll of wrapping paper. Kendall, my 9-year-old, got her corners right and folded them nice and neat on both sides. We've got a little 9-year-old Kendall masterpiece.

And then, you know, every now and again, you want something that feels very elevated and very special. We shop "sah-lay" and "clair-ance," which is sale and clearance. And a great tip is to go literally the day after the holiday when everything is marked down 75% to 85% off. Did they tell you I was Bargain Bertha? I'm always going to be very proud of the fact that I didn't spend any money to do anything.

No matter how good I think I get, I'm never as good as mom.

- Oh.

EGYPT SHERROD: And that's OK. But we got to spend this time together, right?

- Yes.

EGYPT SHERROD: This is quality time. This is tradition for us. From our family to yours, happy holidays.

- My heart to your heart.