To boycott wrapping paper this Christmas ?

[MostlyAmbridgeandcoffee]

It’s terrible for the environment and completely pointless ! Who’s with me? Old newspaper or pretty reusable cloth instead? My little one turned 1 this weekend and the cardboard and wrapping paper rubbish at the end of it all made me feel a bit ill! Does anyone do this already and have any tips ?

Since I discovered that wrapping paper was not recyclable a few years ago, I was truly shocked. Since then I reuse some gift bags from years ago also 2 material sacks and brown parcel paper.

I buy gifts because I want to and it's important in my culture. I will openly admit that I spoil my children, but having 6 pairs of pyjamas is not a big deal. I've probably got more than 20 pairs.

And I hate to see children wearing clothes that swamp them so that they can wear it for years. I buy a dressing gown that fits them and when they're done with it I'll give it away. I'm not 'conforming to consumerism' I'm buying Christmas presents.

Not all of their aunts/uncles buy them gifts, but I don't believe in giving to receive and I buy for their children anyway.

What do you mean, your culture?

What culture is it important to overindulge at Christmas?

I'm a traveller and gift giving is important to us. Mostly everyone buys for everyone. Regardless of that I love gift giving.

My nana was ahead of her time! She used to take off wrapping paper carefully and fold it up to use again. We'd make fun of her for it bless her. We lost her a couple of years ago aged 93 , she was right on trend it seems!

Culture is no excuse for over indulgence. On the one hand you have impassioned children concerned about climate change, but yours are just going to go on consuming because it is learnt behaviour from you.

You might enjoy gift giving, but at what point are you going to be embarrassed enough to rein it in. I assume never.

This thread has inspired me to reuse some old bedding and make some draw string present bags.

Also a nice reminder to cut down on buying stuff. My Xmas list has now been culled to 8 from 30 or so. My DH buys for his family so he buys another 7. It's a relief to have a smaller list although I do also miss giving to more people.

Why is it over indulgence?

I can't believe your kids sit there and open 6 presents of pyjamas. They must think, what a treat!

@Pinkyyy Your original post said that it's Christmas, the time for over indulgence. I think you know very well what it means.

Totally agree that wrapping paper is just part of the whole reining it in thing. 300 parcels is ridiculous, whatever your culture. Giving someone a gift does not have to mean "stuff".

We have made conscious decisions to stop giving stuff and give other types of gifts. Last year my teenage nieces got tickets to the cinema and vouchers for pizza afterwards. My parents bought the kids passes to a local trampoline centre place. DS got tickets to a concert he was looking forward to.

Doesn't have to be expensive - £5 on a Costa voucher is enough for a cup of coffee and a cake. And so much better than £5 of imported plastic tat from poundland or similar. You just have to get over the idea that Christmas = piles of presents under the tree.

Hampers are in baskets so surely they don't also need to be wrapped in cellophane or equivalent? Just leave it off. We've come to see a giant tower of cellophane as indulgence. We need to re-calibrate again to see it as waste. Presenting the baskets unwrapped might go some way to doing that

Hampers are in baskets so surely they don't also need to be wrapped in cellophane or equivalent?

We've been using the same wicker hamper for years, it still has the wooden Merry Christmas Tag attached as well as neatly folded tissue paper. My in-laws unpack it then store it until the following year when we get to back to refill. We were gifted a wicker hamper a few years ago but I use it as storage.

My daughter and her boyfriend are huge into gaming so thinking about some sort of voucher for them. Our eldest has recently said not to buy them anything so thinking of getting them a charity gift of some sort. Just researching which charities receive the biggest percentage of the donation. Ideas welcome.

300 presents is way too much in my opinion. You are setting your children up to expect that amount every year. No child needs that much stuff.

I also come from a big family (44 people) but we have an agreement not to buy for uncles, aunts and cousins. Great grandparents have asked for no gifts as they have accumulated so much stuff in their lifetime. So I buy for

My 2 DCs
My 5 nieces and nephews
My parents and parents in law
My brother and sister in law (but not DH's sister and her partner as we have a no present agreement)

That's it. No neighbours, colleagues or friends are bought for. It just gets out of hand. Some people I know buy for less people than us and still have a lovely time.

Martin Lewis says something like, give your friends the gift of not being obligated to buy you something in return. Less stuff being given means less stuff to be taken to the charity shop (hopefully not binned) in January. Less financial worry. Better for the environment.

We also don't do presents for children's friends or from the children to grandparents etc. They give a homemade decoration they've made at school sometimes or a picture -so I don't have to have all the clutter in my house-

We have lots of birthdays around Christmas time from family that live away and some overseas. We tend to send stuff on wishlists, gift tokens or hampers. I put up wishlists which can include useful items for dcs. Hopefully, that means we send and receive mostly what's wanted, rather than just stuff.

Also, we have reusable sack/stockings and don't wrap the presents inside, which include things like pyjamas, socks, underwear, hats, scarves as needed, chocolates, dd1 likes art supplies, dd2 often has sensory toys. We used to include a Christmas decoration each, but we've scaled down our tree and don't need any more.

We have an old felt advent calendar that we use each year. we put in small wooden decorations that hang up on a small wooden tree each day and some small chocolates. Again, not much wastage, I hope.

I used brown paper and ribbons last year. Took ages to wrap without the convenience of Sellotape but it did look nice. I collected it all up at the end and have stashed away for this year!

Bluewavescrashing does the hamper food have to be in a basket? I’ve put together hamper type food gifts and given them in hessian bags. Most charities have them so I chose the type of charity the recipient is in support of and get a bag from there. Charity gets a donation and gift receiver gets a reusable bag.

I raided charity shops for scarves / wraps and used them tied with ribbon for last christmas

Please don’t stop wrapping your presents
After a very tragic year one year when we could have done with some jollying up
Mum gave me my presents unwrapped...obviously suffering herself like we all were and at midnight instead of Xmas morning
Sucked all the joy out of the day

I don’t remember many individual xmases...but I’ll never forget that one

I honestly don't mind unwrapped presents.

Our presents are wrapped, just in reusable gift bags (paper and fabric) with last year's cards as tags. Easier and no bin bag of used wrapping paper.

We use brown paper and string - looks amazing!

I use brown paper as standard. Often it's recycled and the gets recycled but still feels a waste. I have used scraps of fabric and charity shop silk type scarves. I like the idea of a pillow case. I could do one for each person I give to and re use...

I agree why can't we just use newspaper apart from the fact that it looks tacky
I reuse gift bags and don't wrap the individual presents