Do you use Christmas wrapping paper you still have from last year?

[lottieandmia]

Year after year I buy nice stuff from paper chase or wherever. I still have some left over from last year. I've never reused it before - should / do you always buy new stuff?

I barely understand the original question :) I even reuse paper which was used so long as it isn't scrunched up. Must have got this from my own Nan as I remember her carefully smoothing out paper as she opened gifts. I hate waste, I also buy next years paper in the sales.

In our group of friends we regularly re-use bottle gift bags. The same one has being going round for a couple of years now....

Nobody writes on the tags....

Why on earth wouldn't you use last year's wrapping paper?

I have always used cards for gift tags. You can also use birthday cards or blank ones as well.

Wrapping paper I buy in the sales. Last year I bought some as I hadn't seen anything else reduced then found loads of nicer paper in John Lewis so consequently have tonnes this year.

If you don't want to use your paper you could consider donating. I am collecting and making up boxes for my local womens refuge so need a fair amount for that. I am sure there are plenty of food banks, salvation army etc that would love to have it.

We used to reuse old paper as kids, but it never looked very neat! So I started buying rolls when I moved out. But now with young DCs, neatness is not really an issue, the paper doesn't last anyway !
I do buy generic ones, makes it so much easier during the year.
As for santa, he just gives the stockings here, and we don't wrap the stuff that goes in stockings.
I do keep really pretty papers, but don't want to reuse those, I need to think of a use for them!

I used to buy wrapping paper each year or in the sales ... until last year when we moved and I saw my stockpile (that had been hidden in the attic). Even the movers were impressed

So this year, only new paper for the kids. I probably won't need to buy paper for adults for ... ahem ... a while.

I reuse everything. I cut up last years cards to make tags, reuse paper, bows, ribbon. Last year I got s big roll of paper and got my toddler to run all over it with painted feet and we used that for family 🙊

Yes of course. I always buy a bit each year but always have some left over for the following year. Also cards and 2nd class stamps.

I don't use last years paper for the children. There's never enough left as I colour code.
I usually save the leftover rolls to use for nephews and nieces or I do wrapping for the school Christmas grotto and use it then.
Paper I use for others gets used every year until it's gone though.

In Japan, they have beautiful pieces of fabric that are used to wrap presents without cutting them. I think they are called Furoshiki. The effect is absolutely gorgeous. They are expensive but the receiver gets to keep and reuse the wrap as well as the gift - so they can either treasure it or iron and use it to wrap something else. It's true recycling!

I buy a few rolls in the January sales every year/ Come the next Christmas I use up last years and mix it up with the new stuff, then in January I go to the sales and ........ you get the picture.

Christmas crackers are always last years too. I have been known to buy red one year then gold the next and then on the third year mix the two lots of leftovers and set them out alternately.

Come to think of it, so are Christmas cards and tags. A collection of odds and sods from various purchases.

A pack of gold serviettes lasts years!

I am not actually thrifty at all usually.

I will admit to buying new each year for DH and the DCs, but any leftovers get put into a box and used for everyone else.

I know last year I did red and white striped for Father Christmas presents but I cannot for the life of me remember whether they were stocking or main presents, and if they had tags.... #flawedtraditions!

Waste not want not. We re-use gift bags, bows, ribbons and larger bits of used paper from previous years, and I have been known to cut up Christmas cards to make tags when money is tight as well. Some of the bags and rolls of paper have been going strong a while now, likewise the bows. I buy stuff in the January sales, and the whole lot is used eventually. Why would anyone throw perfectly good stuff away?

(DM ironed the creases out of used wrapping paper when I was a kid, and if it's really nice, I do too)

If you've got last year's wrapping stuff you really don't want or like, then send it to a charity shop - someone will have it and make good use of it.

I just use it until it runs out, just like anything else!

I'm always amazed at how weird people can be about Christmas though. I saw "re-use last year's Christmas decorations this year" being proffered as a money-saving tip on here the other day. I mean, WTF? Don't people do that anyway?! Some of mine must be decades old!

For those of you who are keeping track of special Santa paper, in our house we wrap presents ourselves, then the elves come by to collect them for delivery... nobody bats an eyelid if the paper roll is found.

As for using it up year after year, absolutely.

Also I probably have gift bags that are 6 or 7 years old and still going strong, they just get passed back and forth between family.

My SIL and I have toyed with the idea of trying to build up a family set of furoshiki - on the basis that if they are used only for family gifts, then after a few years of making them there should be enough in circulation to last indefinitely.

We haven't got around to it yet, though, as we both always run out of time and/or end up getting presents delivered direct from suppliers, since we don't live in the same country.

Yes, we buy rolls every year and then keep them until the roll is finished, so we usually have a little bit left from the year before at the start of wrapping season every year.
That feels extremely close to buying completely new every year for me, given that when I grew up all gifts were always wrapped from the Family Bag of Wrapping Paper which was a giant patchwork collection of previously used, folded papers, sometimes stretching back decades for the really microscopic pieces, only ever replenished by new paper brought in on presents from external family members.

Actually, FC is the only exception to using what is around in our house. He is only responsible for stocking presents, but he wraps those in special very very cheap paper which does not appear anywhere else. Any remnants of that (and we would be talking about 10p worth of paper) goes on the fire.

Do you actually buy wrapping paper before Christmas?

I always get my Christmas paper on Boxing Day, which is a little early for the really good mark downs but makes sure I get first pick of the more generic gold and silver stuff that can be used for birthdays, weddings etc as well. BHS used to do some good stuff with decent markdowns and Matalan's are great. The best score I ever got was from Morrisons one year when they had 3m rolls of Christmas paper for 10p each. I bought an armful.

However last year I had to move a load of stuff to fit in a piano and found around 50 rolls of wrapping paper stashed in various corners. I'm not buying any this Boxing Day.

I have also accidentally bought 700 Christmas cards and there is a box full of (incredibly inexpensive, marked down) gift tags. I think I'm sorted for years.

I buy Christmassy stuff and then if I need more for a few extra [resents, I go for something plain e.g. just red or silver or whatever. That way you can put a bit of non-christmas coloured string stuff round it and use it for birthday presents in the year too.

But I try not to give mismatched wrapping paper to the same family group, just because it's helpful if you know Aunty Susan wrapped everything in robins with hats on when you're handing them presents out.

Yes, I reuse. The only caveat is that for a group of children I use either old or new paper for all of them so there's no risk of any of them feeling singled out.

My mum used to cut the pictures of robins etc. out of last year's Christmas cards and stick on new bits of card to make her cards for the following year.

I buy gold or silver and use it for all occasions! All my present look the same until the roll is finished.

We haven't brought any for two years lol

Of course I reuse it. It never occurred to me that anybody wouldn't. I've been known to use it for (family) birthdays too, in extremis...

Yes and I also recycle gift bags from pressies I have received.