Crackers - an ethical alternative?

[WewishyouaBUMPERLICIOUS]

It occurred to me today that xmas crackers are a huge waste of energy & money, usually filled with rubbish that just gets thrown away after dinner.

can anyone recommend an ethical/economical/inspiring alternative or should i just not both at all?

TESCO have some recycled ones that I think said 100% recycled

make your own, surely? then you can put decent stuff in them and use recycled paper etc

Just wrap a few of those Mini Green and Blacks squares in tissue paper for the adults and a fortune telling fish from hawkins for the children. Sorted!!! If you want to avoid tissue paper too, you could wrap them in the napkin at their place setting and tie with ribbon.

You could easily make you own out of scraps of paper & trimmings. The inside is a loo roll, obviously you need to start collecting them a bit in advance Then fill with something you think won;t get thrown away afterwards.

Have to say we never had them when I was a child so I just thought I would follow our tradition. It did mean that they had a massive forbidden glamour for me as I grew up but the tat factor is ultimately too great for me to ignore.

DD2 is making these: www.bakerross.co.uk/cat_id/XMSACIDE/product-Felt-Stocking-Sewing-Kits-EX318.htm

• which may end up on the table in place of crackers, filled with something the recipients will actually use. They are reusable and it's teaching her to sew at the same time - so a bit ethical!

We've also made our own crackers in the past. Definitely better in terms of avoiding tat, but probably no better in terms of materials.

lol no crackers

When I was a child we always made our own crackers. Lots of fun, even if they did look a bit, well, as if children had made them. And no bangs (although I think you can buy them) so we all just shouted "bang" at the appropriate moment.

Cardboard boxes? We'd have given our back teeth for cardboard boxes.

Tesco's Good Gift Crackers look great

www.goodgifts.org/tesco

As a child, my mum got one of those make your own cracker kits once where you could put in your own prizes. Made something ridiculous like 100 crackers out of one kit so lasted many years.

Unfortunately though, they only included 6 jokes... so we got tired of them pretty quick and used to have competitions how quickly we could complete the punchline

Usually get crackers from Oxfam, but my local branch had sold out this year so we have bought the Tesco's recycled ones. Had a make your own cracker kit one year which wwas quite good fun making but cracker result wasn't brilliant. Can't give them up though -- integral part of xmas with sill hats and all, imho.

Thanks for the help. think i will just give them a miss this year.

we actually made our own as gifts last year, but there is only me DH & the baby this year so they won't be missed.