Eco Christmas ideas

[napsarelifewithtwo]

There is always so much waste around Christmas. What does everyone do to keep this down?

What is the best eco wrapping paper (other than just brown parcel paper - Santa needs a diff wrap to what I do)?

Do you still send Xmas cards?

Any festive craft ideas that don't involve lots of waste?

☺️

Make your own wreath

Small, different badges? The kind we use to collect on our backpacks or denim jackets! Lots of cute or funny ones out there.

Love this and following for ideas 💡

I’ve hand stamped brown paper before, which looks very effective (and it’s super easy, I’m not very arty!)

Slightly dull answer but my best tip is to agree with friends and family (not children) not to do presents or cut down to a single Secret Santa gift. Alternatively encourage recipients to be very specific with any requests (“I’d like a copy of the new Richard Osman” not “a book”) to minimise unwanted but kindly-meant gifts. Cash is a very welcome gift for teens and won’t be wasted, doesn’t need much wrapping etc. The amount of resources we waste on stuff no one actually wants is heartbreaking.

We're slowly getting better with this (I think):

Presents from Father Christmas are in red and white striped paper bags (like the ones you used to get in sweet shops). I bought a load from Amazon years ago and am nowhere near running out of them yet.

Any big present (e.g a bike or a scooter) doesn't get wrapped. I may tie a ribbon onto it but usually don't.

Plastic toys are all second-hand. Things like a garen slide, Playmobil, Lego etc I buy off Facebook Marketplace or Vinted. DDs don't care that it isn't brand new. Last year I got them a Playmobil doll's house second-hand and set it all up for them ready to come down to in the morning. They were happy to immediately start playing with it rather than getting it out of the box and set up.

Fewer presents in general and with wider family we write gift lists for suggestions so I know I'm buying something that the person actually wants.

You know all the ‘artwork’ toddlers make and bring back from nursery? I save some and use to gift wrap grandparents and friends gifts. They love it, and uses up what’s already painted. Win win

December 1st box. We have the last few years just put Christmas related books and toys away with decorations. I’m going to get a nice box to store them in and bring out beginning of December so Ds has a month of Christmas stories. They are stories, puppets and similar so far, but everything just reused from year before. If someone gets him something else Christmas related it will be added over time.

We reuse all the gift bags/ wrapping paper we’ve been given.

The problem with the fabric wrapping is that presumably you have to ask for it back again?!

Also, yes to using toddlers art work. I bought some recycled brown paper plain cards and envelopes and cut out bits of DCs masterpieces (e.g. cut in a tree shape/ snowflake shape ) and stick it on to make a card.

We also re-use gift bags and put most presents in them rather than wrapping them in paper. We have some gift bags that we've been reusing for presents within the family for over 5 years.

Any presents we're given in gift bags, we keep the bags to reuse another time.

Any Christmas cards we get sent we cut out the front to use as gift tags for the following year.

Does anyone have ideas for good chocolates to get to put in advent calendars? I normally just buy a tub of celebrations but every year I think how wasteful all the packaging is (plastic tub plus individual chocolate wrappers). Very unlikely to be making anything myself so please don't suggest making something myself!

I use bed clothes to wrap the presents; the parents already know in advance that I'll be needing them back.

Previously I'd pop to fabric stalls and buy 50p off cuts of christmas fabric to wrap the presents but pillow cases work fine.

For the meat eaters ,I buy the Turkey thigh joint, season it and pop it in the freezer ready for Christmas dinner. It is 1.2 kg and is under a fiver . The thigh joint is less likely to dry out than breast meat but the supermarkets tend to take it off the shelves early December.

I have chaffin dishes so no need to heat anything up and a soup kettle for the gravy.Speaking of gravy ,I start freezing meat and veg juices the beginning of December.

I forage for my Holly to make wreaths, the kiddies love it!

We have 2 living Xmas trees which I keep in pots in the garden.

One is coming into its 3rd year of use, the other its 4th.

They are a bit smaller than the cut ones we used to buy from the local farm, one goes in the front porch, the other in the living room.

Some of our tree decorations were inherited and are probably about 50 years old. I haven't bought any new since the kids were babies. They are now adults. I used to buy 1 decoration per year for each child from a fair-trade shop for their stockings. When they finally move into their own homes they will take them with them.

Also make my own door wreath from holly, ivy and other stuff in the garden. I have a reusable willow base and there are plenty of guides on YouTube.

I buy fair-trade chocolate coins. Charity shops sell them. There's a bit of waste from the foil, but at least you are supporting a good cause.

This year my efforts will be

• shopping locally as much as I can, and not ordering too much online to avoid shipping, excess cardboard boxes etc
• reducing my road travel in December (I don’t particularly enjoy crowds so I avoid the shops, grocery shop less, and minimise the events we attend).
• Use up what I have before buying anything new - esp wrapping.
• Reduce, reuse, recycle before buying.
• Use up all the food we buy - I’m going for a slightly smaller turkey, and buying less treats. Everyone goes on a diet in January and it sits around uneaten.
• Not buy extra sides in plastic containers. I feel competent enough in the kitchen to make these, and content to have less choices.
• Not use disposable containers - it’s not a problem for me to soak and scrub the roasting tray.

Those feel achievable in my current circumstances and I would hate anyone to get discouraged or overwhelmed by one of the items on my list. I used to find threads like this intimidating. But every little effort we make counts so just do what’s achievable in your life. There’s a notable absence of homegrown or handmade gifts from my list and I’m refusing to feel bad about it!

@KeepOnPushingOn Tiny Tony’s are lovely. I’m not sure about the packaging aspect but I appreciate the ethics of the chocolate.

I have started buying cloth wrapping for presents for people in the house that can be reused every year. I also have cloth crackers which we make our own jokes for. They come with cloth hats and I usually pop a chocolate in.

Also reusable advent calendars

Love these ideas!

DS used to be allergic to milk so we had the old fashioned advent calendars with a picture behind the door. Then a few years later we were a bit pressed for cash, so DC shared one calendar and took turns opening the door. Then one year we were more skint and I found the previous year’s calendar in the decoration box so I closed the doors and reused it. This will be our 11th year with the same one and it’s just become a nice tradition. You could always have a sweet each from a bag when opening the doors.

We have amassed a collection of bottle bags and Amazon gift wrap bags which we reuse. We are largely non-gift, but do bottles for adults (hm cordial or mead or regifted bottles that we don’t drink). Cash for teens. Books for children. Our stockings tend to be things we would buy anyway - handkerchiefs, soap, new toothbrush, sweets, stickers, stationery.

Mostly try to focus on traditions rather than stuff. Church carols, school concerts, community events, band concerts. Check out lurid light displays on local houses (we have some real stunners nearby).

Easier to be eco if you avoid spending money I think!

Some excellent ideas here. We also have a wooden calendar already so that is another thing that gets reused. And we have done present lists for years within my family as everyone got sick of getting tat so now I know (and they know) I am at least buying something wanted.

Father Christmas doesn’t wrap, the stocking is the wrapping.
My own dc have a gift box that their present gets put in every year, in between it stores their xmas decorations.
Family get gifts in cloth bags that get passed back and forth.
save and reuse any gift bags we’re given, sil and I have been passing the same bottle bag back and forth for at least a decade!

Reusable advent calendars, get filled with sweets, chocolates etc. bit wasteful on the packaging though. Last year I did stuff like splitting packs of starburst etc but that’s still double wrapping. Maybe I could do pick n mix although they might go stale.

I get sucked into buying too much for in the stockings. Need to try harder this year.

We save all the Christmas gift bags and reuse them. Santa has never wrapped presents, it’s in a stocking so you can’t see it until it’s pulled out.
All vegetables and meat are grown/ reared within 10 miles of where we live.
I always make some gifts, which I enjoy doing.
DD and DH made /decorated a Hobby Craft advent calendar about 8 years ago which I restock with chocolate.
Santa always brings some useful things such as toothbrushes, pens, pants, shower gel, socks, pads of paper and revision cards for school.

I have wrapped presents in scarves bought from charity shops and the scarf is then part of their gift, a 2 in 1 gift.

@Troubledwords same! I use charity shop scarves to wrap larger gifts or, for my own DC, charity shop T-shirt/top with a nice design they'd wear to wrap another gift.

I used to do home made Christmas cards with a round robin type letter done on the computer, but gave up on posting cards last year and am just going to email the letter going forward and maybe just scan a festive picture by DC to send with it.

Love the idea of double-sided bunting! I've been meaning to make birthday bunting for years, so maybe I could have Christmas fabric on the other side...

I need to do better at not buying too much food. I forget to plan a few small meals of just egg on toast as I am too busy trying to include everyone's favourite in a 10 day period along with half a year's worth of snacks!

I buy a lot of things off Vinted and eBay, it's often cheaper so I can either save or get something better for the money. All of my friends are happy with second hand stuff.

One way or another I've ended up with a lot of spare magazines this year, I was thinking of using pages from these to wrap with. Ideal home or national geographic might look quite pretty?

reusable fabric gift bags for presents is a game changer. So much less hassle and waste. I make my own. Also I gift stuff like show tickets, concert tickets as much as poss