Buy Nothing Christmas

[PeggyGuggenheim]

My Friends of the Earth group are holding an alternative Christmas event, sharing ideas of how to make gifts/cards/decorations out of recycled stuff, stuff we've already got, charity shop stuff, etc. I went on an amazing website called Buy Nothing Christmas

and found gift certificates that were like a little "contract" between two people -

"I, Simone de Beauvoir, agree with you, Jean Paul Sartre, that we will not buy one another a gift this year because all this excessive shopping is an evil capitalist plot, and we refuse to be co-opted into this filthy brainwashing festival of competitive consumption"

That wasn't the wording though, and I'm struggling to formulate the right words.

I know you can make personalised gift vouchers saying "I'll do some baby-sitting / cleaning / massage", but they're not what I'm after.

All brain-waves gratefully received!

My mum always buys us a goat and some chickens from oxfam for xmas.

I did a Buy Nothing year in 2008 - which included Christmas, obviously.

Tree decorations are always a good thing to make - sewing from little scraps, making stockings as well. Last year I made a stocking from an old woolly jumper with applique stuff on it.

Or little clay things and paint them, to hang on t'tree.

The Ecologist guide to a Green Christmas:

www.theecologist.org/Guides/Ecologist_Guide_To_A_Green_Christmas/654225/ecologist_guide_to_a_green_christmas.html

Although someone on there talks of an ice-cream machine being on her "wish-list", oh the irony.

Not quite the same but I do a list of thing that I was going to buy for myself and sugest these to others. This year it includes pyjamas, fleece jacket, a couple of books etc. This means that I get presents to unwrap but they are wanted useful things that would have been bought any way.