In "Pass the parcel", the children's game, a parcel is passed around a group of children while music is playing. When the music stops, whoever is holding the parcel removes one layer of paper. The music then restarts and the same things happen. Each time a layer of paper is removed, the children are closer to the prize/present that's hidden in the centre of the parcel. The aim is to be the person holding the parcel when the music stops, when there is only one layer of paper left to unwrap, so that you take off that last layer of paper and win the thing in the centre. When I was a child, there was just one present, wrapped in multiple layers of paper. Over the intervening years, I understand that it has become popular for a small gift (a single sweet or something similar) to be concealed under each layer of paper, with the main present in the centre being a bigger, more valuable item. As far as I can tell, this is because children didn't like taking off a layer of paper only to find that there was nothing underneath it! For me, that's faintly ridiculous and defeats the object of the game! But I grew up in the days when kids didn't constantly expect to get something for nothing.
