Low Crap Christmas

[FurForksSake]

Anyone else trying to have a less wasteful Christmas? I want things to be festive, but there are lots of things I will no longer be doing or buying as I have become a bit more aware of their impact.

• All gifts will be usable or experiences bar stockings for the kids or specific requests
• No christmas cards aside from handmade and hand delivered ones
• No wrapping paper - brown paper and string instead
• No single use items for making meals
• Really good meal planning to make the most of left overs
• No BIG christmas shop with food we don't need to eat.

Maybe most people do this anyway? I just look at the magazines and all the things to buy and I feel a bit sick. Most of the things are going to end up in landfill within 5 years. There is just so much STUFF.

I am going to try and do 24 days of craft with my children for advent, all using stuff we already have or can collect. Also doing a reverse advent this month for the food bank to encourage us to be thoughtful and remember the giving aspect.

Am I being daft? Was I just being a wasteful idiot in the past or am I becoming Grinchy?

We are trying to have a Low Crap Christmas.

I refuse to jump on the bandwagon with elves on shelves having "fun" making a mess, christmas eve boxes, 1st december boxes and all the rest of the nonsense. I was reading something earlier about people paying to have their front door wrapped in cheap net or plastic - seriously, what the actual fuck??

We have a Christmas tree which is coming up for its 16th Christmas. It is still going strong and will not be replaced any time soon. I don;t think i've bought new decorations for at least a decade. I like that the tree is a mish-mash of stuff we've bought over the years and the kids have made at school.

Presents - my kids are past the pre-school plastic stage and aren't coveting the cheap and nasty tat any more. Stockings are filled with things like soap, nail varnish, chocolate, pens/pencils, Lego minifigures. We don't have a massive extended family and I make a real effort to buy local/ethically. My mum and Dad are getting a lovely painting I picked up in a charity shop and had reframed. I've knitted a fancy scarf/wrap for my sister. The secondary school are having their christmas fair next week and there are always lots of local traders who have nice things and the school makes things too - this year they're doing nice cheeseboards which they can personalise with your initials so might get one for my brother.

I won't get sucked into the "shop as if the world is going to end on 23rd December" shite. The little Co-Op along the road is open on Boxing Day. So is the bigger supermarket 5 minutes' drive away. Usually fabulous yellow sticker bargains on Boxing Day too as they try to ditch the leftover turkeys.

Crackers - we get fill your own crackers. Think last year they were from Waitrose. Everyone still got their hat and joke, but instead of plastic tat we put little chocolate bars inside.

One plea - have seen a lot of people talking about making some type of "reindeer" food with oats and glitter. Glitter is plastic. It's an environmental nightmare. Sprinkle it all over your garden, and it will eventually leach into the soil, the watercourse and the oceans. Just put out the fecking oats if you must.

www.independent.co.uk/environment/glitter-ban-environment-microbead-impact-microplastics-scientists-warning-deep-ocean-a8056196.html

Oh god yes, reindeer food is such a fucked up idea.

I've got some fill your own crackers I didn't manage last year (sick kids, hospitals, it was a cluster fuck and a blur) so might put some lindt balls in those, who doesn't love a lindt ball? I'd put in some hand made florentines wrapped in foil, but think that might be a bridge too far!

Yep love a tat free Xmas! We also have an old tree which has still got years left. No new decorations we have enough. No bloody creepy elves or Christmas Eve boxes. I long ago stopped buying tins of roses etc we just weren’t eating them and I hate food waste.
Christmas Eve will be spent baking mince pies and gingerbread, those and a sherry trifle are the only sweet things we actually want. Dh likes a selection of cheeses so that’s his present sorted.
Ds is getting a camera and a few books, so thankful to be past the plastic toy stage! And nephews and nieces get gift cards. None of the adults in our family buy for each other.
No big food shop needed. Leftover meat from Christmas Day will become a pie on Boxing Day, shops are open again after that.
Thank you for the idea of making own gift tags with stamps, ds will love doing that.

www.skullandcrossbuns.com/products/cat_901228-christmas.html Mine come from here, they are lovely and so beautiful. A real pleasure to use.

I love those OP! I will never need to buy tags again

Aunts and uncles will be getting mine dressing gowns and slippers, or books. The main presents are lego from Ebay, more because they have realised that means they can get the huge cool set we'd never buy otherwise. I put large boxes of cereal in the stockings to fill them up, as they were made for the kids but are huge.

People know to buy me second hand books but my favourite presents are babysitting or massage vouchers. We don't really do much for adults - usually a book for parents and some extra second hand ones.

I've been good at not buying new decorations for years, partly because parents downsize their collection about as fast as they break. I often get basic paper crackers which are all recyclable with just a joke, hat and some facts or puzzle on a bit of paper, and we have some toys for the table.

However we do have a tradition of going to the supermarket on Boxing Day (it's a couple minutes walk) and the kids have about £20 each, and the amount of tat they can find reduced to a fraction of the original price... I think dd last year got a lamp, a money box, a watch, a cuddly toy and some bits of plastic shit! I stock up on the foodie gift items.

We’ve never been into Christmas excess, but are trying harder this year. Unfortunately, though, it feels that the more we try in some areas, the more we fail in others.

We have established that last years Christmas jumpers (both bought second hand) will just about do for the kids this year. DS1s is a little short in the arm, but he’ll only wear it a few times). I have also decided against Christmas PJs. The boys both have some nice ones already.

We don’t buy for many adults; just a small thing for siblings, two friends and our parents. We’ll buy a huge box of vegan chocolate (paper & foil) wrapped for one sibling, a voucher for another and a nice wine for the other. My mum will have a book, a book voucher, school photo & a calendar (always the same). All presents are being wrapped in brown paper with string. (Apart from the single Santa present for the kids, and their stockings, for which we have recycled paper).

We have also meal planned and are getting as much as possible from Riverford Organics. Although they do still use plastic, the company seems very ethical and their products carefully chosen.

Less good, though, are the kids presents. In the past, we have bought slots of wooden toys, and often second hand. This year, though, at 3 & 6, they have been quite insistent about what they want, and I don’t want to disappoint completely. DS1 loves Robot Wars and have been after Hexbugs for ages. We have eventually, and reluctantly, conceded, and Santa has got him a set for Christmas morning. He also has a plastic electronics set. Similarly, DS2 fell in love with a Bruder cement mixer and has been on about it for weeks. I am hoping, though, that with the exception of the hexbugs, the other toys will have a long life with us, and then go in to others (although I realise they will eventually be tipped!).

Stockings, and other children, are mostly useful, wearable or readable.

This isn't for everyone I suppose, but we have always just done a wee stocking for our kids and no presents they get plenty from GPs and thats where most of their toys have come from. If we see something through the year that we think they will like we might get it at the time if its not near birthdays.

Will be doing brown paper and string this year, had a wee look at how to tie up a parcel with no tape on you tube so will be following that.

We use low tack tape and use the same wrapping paper over and over again.

We are doing no spend 19 and whilst we won’t have officially started at Christmas, we are focussing on experience gifts for the DSs and I’ve booked DH onto a bee keeping course which he’s wanted to do for ages.

We haven’t sent Christmas cards for a long time now but instead treat the ones we had in past years as decorations and put the same ones up year after year!

I totally mistook your title op - I expected to read that you thought your Christmas was going to be crap due to a shortage of money and low mood!

I think what you are doing sounds lovely - going back to basics - simple, hand made I love the sound of your active advent - my kids are too old for this - definitely in the too much stuff category - infact I’m struggling with what to get them this year - they’re 17! My gut says I don’t want to get them anything - they don’t need anything - they both have parttime jobs - what they need is peace and love after a few years of shite with still more to come - I need to work out how to achieve this!

Watching this thread with interest as I’ve tried to do this most years! Have narrowed it down to just one set of tat-buying relatives...

I have bought my DCs driving lessons for Xmas which they will LOVE as they are not old enough to drive otherwise! Plus bought musical tickets in the past.

I like to recycle ‘our’ gift labels and have them in a Xmas box ready to stick on, along with an advent candle bought in last year’s sale. No tree this year, but I have soooo many decorations that nobody will notice.

Forgot to add - I wrap my DCs’ gifts up in scarves, they love it! Lush used to do similar. Yes towel wrapping is a fabulous idea!

Each year I'm getting better at low crap Christmases.
The kids get one present they really want that they will play with loads. The stockings have a mix of treats like chocolate and useful things like toothbrushes and new pants.
The nieces and nephews get experience presents. Not anything too expensive. We've given tickets for the local trampoline park, ice skating. This year will be vouchers for the ice cream parlour. It's something nice to do in January too.
We are going to do secret Santa for the grown ups. Everyone gets something but it's something they really want.

I like the idea of giving experiences, if anyone asks then that will be what my children would like. I hadn't thought about the lower value experiences, in fact my niece would like one too.

I also like the scarf wrapping idea, once you start thinking about reusable wrapping or at least recyclable it opens up lots of options :)

www.seasaltcornwall.co.uk/accessories/jute-bags/jute-shopping-bag_fallen_leaves.htm - couple of these are half price so I have ordered 3 of them for parental present wrappings.

What do you all do about family who are High Crap? I've only ever bought the kids one modest present each for birthdays and christmas yet I have a play room full of tat. I can genuinely not think of anything the kids would be bothered about getting for christmas, they have so many toys already. I was in sainsburys the other week and I saw the half price toy sale, my heart sank and all I could think of was 'how much of this shit is going to end up in my house'. I can't even think about the 3 overpriced gift sets I don't want I'll get that only cost as much as 2 overpriced gift sets I didn't want.

I've tried to stop it and have one family who has happily agreed no presents, but the rest don't consider it christmas without overexcited children furiously unwrapping a mountain of plastic tat

My parents in law tend towards the "high crap". When the kids were little it was dreadful. MIL is one of those people who sets a budget of say £40 per child, if that child wants a present which costs £20, she then feels she has to go out and buy £20 of shite to make it fair. They are all about buying the cheapest, the most, the gaudiest. They think I am very odd - last Christmas before tehy moved house they had one of those godawful Santas which "dances", wiggles its hips and sings Jingle Bell Rock. They said they no longer had room for it and would we like it. I may have made in "OVER MY DEAD BODY" remark. Their response is that the children would love it.

Now that they've got older it's actually got a lot easier. They have opted themselves out of Christmas totally. They live a long way from us and we never see them on Christmas Day. They transfer their set amount per child plus something for the adults into our bank account. Totally sucks any of the joy out of Christmas gifts but at least it means we can buy ONE thing per child which is designated as "from gramps and nan" and the rest into their bank account.

My own parents are much more understanding about the whole thing, we usually suggest things like GO Ape vouchers, this year the kids have decided they'd all like vouchers for one of those big trampoline park places which is a great idea.

I think you have to either be really clear about what your kids WOULD like, or cull the crap whilst they are out of sight. We charity shop or regift more than I'd like, but better with someone else. My sister gets a friend to sell on bits on FB with none of the family seeing!

I have a db and sil who compete with each other at Christmas and for birthdays. I have no idea how to handle it. Sil believes that it’s not Christmas if the dc don’t have a pile of plastic tat that mostly breaks straight away. I’m not making this up- those were her very words. How do you argue with that? She sees it as her mission to rescue my dc from deprivation. She was genuinely horrified at me buying boringwooden toys and handmade cotton and woollen dolls when they were small, and feeding them organic vegetables instead of chips and chocolate. My db at least buys enormously expensive lego sets which is slightly more tolerable but they are both deaf to reason, and once the dc have seen the gifts there’s no reasoning with them either.

We have no presents for adults except GPS which is good.

This is a great thread, thanks! I’m really trying to buy from local businesses this year and doing ok so far. The thing I’m struggling with a bit is stockings. Trying to steer clear of too much sugary stuff, but equally finding non plastic stuff that will get used and isnt just novelty tat is hard. Thinking of doing craft bits and sets and have snow globes and a Christmas book each so far. Also usually put in pants and socks. Thought I would look for some cute mini soaps. Any other thoughts appreciated! DC are 9 and 5.

Joining in to remind myself to read properly in the morning!

I think stockings are the hardest bit! I'll be back to share my ideas as my five year old is trying to read this.

In our stockings we are having:
Pants
Socks
Orange
Chocolate coins, big tube of smarties
Probably some small wooden toys
Magazine.

Fortunately we don't have that much family, my DCs get really overwhelmed with too many presents so I'm putting the word out to family and friends that we normally exchange children's gifts with that we'd rather see them instead. My DM asked what we wanted and we said "one present each, and they could do with a new jumper" so she's been knitting and has put in a couple of extra bits. My DF will come up with books usually, or if it's a toy it will be a small one.
One set of godparents always ask and I've said some fun slippers or a board game. The other sets of godparents have small children themselves and two lots are local so a trip to the cinema or trampolining I think.
My DB does complete crap (and I'm talking history book in a language we can't really read for a 4 year old, not piles of plastic toys) so we tend to filter and pretend there wasn't a gift if necessary.

Oh I probably have some teacher gifts to do. I will either rouse myself to make some chocolate truffles, or go for the Green & Blacks set that's cheap on Amazon at the moment.