No wrapping paper - too miserable?

[MarmaladeTeepee]

My DC are nearly 11 and 9 so the days of large, bulky presents are behind us and realistically all of their presents could now fit in a large sack. Would it be utterly miserable of me just to put all of their presents in a sack without wrapping them? I'm just thinking of the sheer envionmental waste that is wrapping paper, but at the same time I don't want to be a total kill joy. Does wrapping paper really make much of a difference?

When I was a child none of my presents were wrapped. It didn't spoil my enjoyment of Christmas at all. I suppose it removes the anticipation of revealing a gift though. Why not ask your children what they would prefer?

Unwrapping presents is the best bit. You can always wrap them in brown paper, so you can recycle it afterwards.

Oh no , you have to wrap them. It's part of the fun

Yes that would suck sorry. I feel the same about wrapping paper as most can’t be recycled I use brown parcel paper and I have some Xmas stencils that I use to make the presents festive looking. If you don’t want to do that at least add a bit of fun and maybe hide their presents as a treasure hunt.

Brown paper and recycle. Brown paper gifts actually good and quite homely under a tree. Or in a large christmas gift box with shredded paper so it's lucky dippish. The excitement of Christmas is as much about the suprise and anticipation as anything else

Brown paper. If you like you can use water soluble paint to stamp a simple pattern on it and it will still be recyclable and look nice. Plenty of time too if you get cracking on it now.

We're brown paper people. You can decorate it how you like which may be a nice activity for your kids. You can also get reusable cloth wraps that you tie close. Search furoshiki. You can get them in a range of sizes.

Don't be lazy. Buy environmentally friendly paper.

I try not to buy wrapping paper for environmental reasons. I save any tissue paper I get in parcels and reuse. I also have made present bags from fabric which I tie up with ribbon, I reuse these each year with my kids. The bonus of this is that it is much quicker than wrapping.

Definitely boring!

Brown paper! Or even news paper (but careful if the black coming off!) Some coloured twine and it will look lovely. Coloured wasabi tape or ribbon.

Or fabric wrapping.

Please do something! If you're children are used to wrapping then I think it would be an anticlimax to just have a sack.

I think paperchase has patterned paper that can be recycled. Or you could do what my DM does, she cuts up and saves squares of nice material from old worn out clothes/duvets and then uses them to wrap up presents with a nice bit of ribbon. Then everyone just hands the material back to her and she puts it away again for next year. Or as PP have said, use brown paper.

No wrapping at all is a bit miserable.

Thanks everyone I guess brown paper it is then!

There is some really lovely paper that's both recycled and recyclable.

Half the fun is guessing what’s inside and tearing the paper off. That said, we use gift bags sometimes and have some from at least 10 years ago, as we just put them away after Christmas,

News paper, magazines, or brown paper. I used to use the kids comics. Looked quite funky

Yes, no wrapping sounds miserable

Newspaper or magazines? Wall lining paper?

Whilst I’m absolutely shit at wrapping gifts (practice does not make perfect for me!) I’d do something rather than nothing.

One year our DIL wrapped all her presents in newspaper tied with red ribbon. They looked beautiful, very smart and she had folded everything incredibly neatly. I fear if I tried to do the same, the results would be far less attractive.

Yes definitely wrap them. I use fabric pieces for mine, got a Christmas design set from Lidl last year which are just a nice size for small presents (think you were supposed to sew them all together to make a bag, they were called fat squares).

I also save any bits of ribbon and gift bags to use. Also if you don’t have ribbon to tie I find that a bit of sellotape will hold it together (you can get plastic free).

The reason our council won't accept any wrapping paper for recycling is because of the sellotape.

If you use brown paper and string you really would be environmentally friendly!

Fabric here. Bought some cheap Christmas fabric one year, have a variety of different size rectangles and just tie up with ribbon. I get all of it put back into a bag at the end to sort out and store to use the following year. When I post presents, the recipients are asked to either keep the fabric and give back to me later, or use it themselves.

Christmas with presents that are unwrapped

Tissue paper or cheap non foil paper from the market. Then I take the sellotape off and recycle or just chuck it on the wood burner

Why can't you just buy paper that you can recycle? We recycle our paper every year. Tbh most of the shops mainly sell recyclable paper now.

Wrap the presents.

Mine were never wrapped as a child and it sucked. There was no surprise of what I was getting.

Use brown paper if you're wanting to be environmentally friendly.