Ideas for a Waste-Free Christmas

To piggyback on TFE's post, I have been practicing a waste free Christmas for years. I have lots of ideas to share but I dont want to be greedy, so I will share one.

I love to make candy- brittle, fudge, truffles, etc, and give them in home made boxes or dish towels tied sack-like in a piece of ribbon. The dish towel makes an excelllent all-around wrapping paper that is re-usable. When I first started doing this 20 years ago people thought I was nuts. Now it is a more acceptable alternative as people are more waste-aware!

How do you have a waste-free Christmas?

We wrap with newspaper. However, one must be aware that some newsprint inks smudge and if you have kids who like to shuffle gifts under the tree, you can end up with gray smears ground into your carpet/flooring.

I also save empty cereal boxes, stuff a gift into the Shreddies or Miniwheats or Cheerios box. Don't wrap at all. Tape shut, add a length of ghastly neon highway ribbon tied in some skinny, stretched out bow...all good.

We also buy used things at Value Village for gifts. We have gotten over the 'it has to be new' ideal. If I see an item that I think will work for someone, I buy it. That also means it is an obligation free gift. If they hate it, heck, take it back to the VV or local thrift store and no I will not be insulted! I hate it when I get gifts that I know come with te attached burden of keeping this object ofrever just because someone went to the extreme work of picking it out and paying gobs of money for it. A gift should never be a burden. If what I have given does not bless or please the receiver, then pass it on and I am not the least bit bothered.
(in that same note, the cost and time of producing a handmade gift like a quilt, which can take up to a year of my time and cost hundreds to produce, those kinds of gifts invested with my time and energy are only ever given to people I know will treasure them).

My family has always saved and reused Christmas bows. My grandmother started it and also saves wrapping paper.

I thoroughly enjoy getting a gift from her with a bow on it that could be 80+ years old. Some of the old ones are beauties.
They then go into my bow bag to be used again, and again...

You can recycle presents like the year I got some liquer filled chocolates. When I opened one, they were so old the chocolate had separated.

No, I didn't eat them.

You gift waster! You could have removed the chocolate and regifted it to me!

Food poisoning, the gift that keeps on giving...

Bwahaha! Hillbilly, I've got some wine from our wedding, you might just find it in your mailbox around Christmas!

I'm making my mom and dad some beeswax candles, I guess that not waisting anything.. And I'm donating the Turkey for Christmas dinner!

Homemade soap and homemade quilts are among my planned Christmas gifts this year. The quilts don't really require wrapping paper, just tie em up with twine and a tag ...

Swamp Hen wrote:Bwahaha! Hillbilly, I've got some wine from our wedding, you might just find it in your mailbox around Christmas!

I'm making my mom and dad some beeswax candles, I guess that not waisting anything.. And I'm donating the Turkey for Christmas dinner!

Excellent! I've got some antique chairs I need to strip the paint off. How did you know?

We have celebrated a waste-free Christmas since moving to BC from Ontario. Because hubby and I are here alone (our family is back east, we have done things like joining a programme that will cook an early Christmas dinner for those in need. When I stated back to work 3 years ago, I would offer to work the day shift so that the other workers could be with their kids on Christmas morning (as I have done this year starting a new job. As long as I am with my guy for Christmas dinner (no matter wher we are, that's with us. We have tons of trees on our property, though not pines, so we go and choose a spruce or something that will hold an ornament or two and that will be our Charlie Brown tree, we make things for each other, although I must admit that one year I bought him a subscription to an art magazine and a coffee card for Tim Horton's in the next town. If we are going to friend's, I will knit something (last year we went to a Christmas Eve dinner at a friend's and I knit her a "chicken tea cosy" it was very cute and was horrible to knit but worth it. I brought her husband cookies and squares that I specially baked as he is a diabetic.

I have made a dozen or so jars of brownies, squares and pancake mix for gifts if we are invited out or have a party at work. That's how we celebrate Christmas. Very simple and very little cost.

Uno's other thread reminded me, with some close relatives we have stopped exchanging gifts and now we each make a contribution to charity. Much better than buying each other stuff we don't need.

Gifts are a non issue for us. My reusing is with decorations. I can and have gone over board with decorations, such as having multiply trees. So what I like to do is every year when I start digging everything out, I will take the decorations I no longer enjoy as much and bring them to my local thrift store. While I am there I usually pick up more decorations for myself to use for Christmas.

I make baked goods, put them in tins, I also sew stuff and give away my canned goods for gifts

I gave canning for Christmas for many years, people especially love Carrot Pudding, I buy reusable shopping bags from Naked Naturals and Coombs Market and use them instead of wrapping paper