Reducing Holiday Waste

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here are some good ideas to reduce holiday waste.

We save and reuse bows.  I also like gift bags and tissue paper because those are easy to reuse.

Comments

make your own gift bags

[dialecticdreamer]

One year, we used leftover wrapping paper from the previous Christmas to make gift bags for items the size of a paperback book or smaller. Hint: save a cereal box, and when making the base, use a scrap of the box (blank side up) to reinforce the bag and it will stand up to seriously HEAVY items!

Two decades later, our major expense for wrapping is a couple of rolls of paper (one decorative, one brown kraft) and some rolls of clear tape, all from the dollar store.

Use up scraps of pretty wrapping paper (including from presents received from others) by making julehjerter (woven heart baskets) as ornaments or holders for gift cards. My template was made eons ago, and there are plenty of them to choose from online, but the basic size should be about the same as the palm of your hand. When attaching a hanging loop, put it through the woven overlap just below the dimple of the curved tops, where there are four layers of paper on each side of the basket. Some of our julehjerter ornaments date from our first Christmas together, in the early 1990's.

Here's a basic tutorial (model is felt, and about 2X the size I've made ornaments):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iQReH4pWvc

Use wrapping paper to make origami figures instead of gift tags (an entirely useless purchase in my opinion, one we eliminated our first Christmas together). The origami figures are MUCH more fun, grab attention, and a non-reading child can "play Santa" if they know which animal origami belongs to each person. HINT: NOT telling them in advance meant that sneaking into a present could be a boring package of Dad's socks. Important, when the kids started identifying the letters in their names before they could dress themselves!

Re: make your own gift bags

[ysabetwordsmith]

Thank you! Those are cool ideas.

Re: make your own gift bags

[dialecticdreamer]

I thought of one more: I'm a fiber crafter, so a skein of fuzzy, sparkly yarn I'd never use for anything to wear makes MARVELOUS puffy gift bows! (I buy yarn at thrift shops, bagged randomly, so I calculate whether it's worth paying the price tag for the skein I want from the bag. That gives me several things to swap or upcycle without using the "associated" craft.)

Re: make your own gift bags

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's a great idea!

Similarly, sparkle yarn can be used to knit or crochet drawstring gift bags that may be reused.

Re: make your own gift bags

[dialecticdreamer]

Also true, but that's a project best started in February or March to prepare for your particular holiday season.

[mirrorofsmoke]

Our family reuses bows, too. And also uses tissue paper, but sometimes occasionally you need paper to rip. ;)

But then, when we have paper, some of the grown-ups take that and use it in craft projects or to wrap smaller gifts.

-Addee

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Wrapping paper isn't so good after being folded and unfolded, but big pieces are fine for re-wrapping smaller items.

[alatefeline]

Addee, I think that's part of the fun sometimes! Maybe your grown-ups should make some things for you so you can enjoy it too.

I use the same silly approach and basic scissors skills for fun packages when I have presents to give and fun art for myself at other times.

[alatefeline]

We have (well, have had and probably still do in some format) a box in my parent's basement of reused wrapping paper, carefully refolded and cut down. We either bought no wrapping paper or got just 1-2 rolls new a year from children selling them door to door. There are separate bags for bows and ribbons. Each person in the family has a bag of saved tags from them to other family members so that the tags can be reused with new gifts. It's especially amusing to put on a 'From Santa' tag - in our tradition, used for stocking stuffers and gag gifts, or extras people couldn't resist - in someone else's handwriting. Tissue paper gets re-flattened, nicer ribbon gets re-wrapped, and gewgaws get saved. Some of it is ten years old and still perfectly good. There's attrition as people throw out crumpled or torn paper, but wrapped presents coming in and the occasional charity buy or perfect color choice have basically kept the box full for over a decade. ... Some of it was probably passed on or discarded at the move, but I just know my mother saved the tag bags and the decorations.

When opening presents, we always have a bag for trash, a bag for recycling, and a MUCH LARGER stack of things to save. ... The system evolved over years from people trying to organize my father's thrifty impulses. Mostly he did it, honestly; Mom was always trying to get rid of things. But once it became a Tradition, of course, we ran with it.

My nuclear family and I have now made a bargain to get each other 'stocking stuffer' type inexpensive small gifts and/or just one present each, since my sibling and I are adults and my parents don't live under the same roof as either of us, and none of us want or need stuff for the sake of stuff. But somebody is still going to have to pass out presents while wearing a Santa hat. ;)

My partner's family saves the colored funny pages from newspaper all year, in a box next to their paper recycling, and wraps presents in comic strips selected to appeal to the recipient.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Each person in the family has a bag of saved tags from them to other family members so that the tags can be reused with new gifts.<<

Oh, that's a good idea!

>>My partner's family saves the colored funny pages from newspaper all year, in a box next to their paper recycling, and wraps presents in comic strips selected to appeal to the recipient.<<

Yeah, I've wrapped a few presents that way.

Re: Thoughts

[alatefeline]

:)

I like using pine cones, large leaves, and other natural objects for decorative touches, too.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, you can get little sprays of things -- pine cones, bells, feather birds, tiny fake giftboxes, etc. -- that make fun toppers instead of bows.

wrapping

[dialecticdreamer]

The years when the boys were more interested in the box than the toy inside were the leanest for future re-wrapping paper: we'd have the boys "help" us unwrap, which meant many scraps of torn paper.

After that, though, it was something of a tradition to line a new plastic bin with funny pages or rumpled wrapping paper from the previous year, then putting their presents of the same category into the bin and taping IT shut, very, very, aggressively. Doing so did more to teach the kids to expect one present (even if it contained half a dozen inexpensive toy cars, for example), rather than Dudley Dursley's behavior.

Re: wrapping

[alatefeline]

My sibling and I were spoiled with far too many THINGS at holidays, but my parents made up for it by modeling self-control and reasonable expectations and generosity of spirit the rest of the year, so by the time we were in our late teens we were active participants in trying to reconfigure family tradition for less materialism and more engagement, without losing the gift-giving traditions we liked.

I confess to being the person who wrapped things with far, far, far too much tape.

Re: wrapping

[dialecticdreamer]

As soon as our youngest outgrew Candyland, we made a point of buying a family gift each year: a new board or card game. We had a hat draw to see who got to open it (and go first), but everyone had helped to pick it out so it wasn't a secret.

Several years of Monopoly, or chess, or backgammon, all made the game cabinet smaller than it could be, but there are so many new games NOW, that we're reviving the tradition.

Re: wrapping

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, we get household gifts too.

That's one of the things I want to cover with Christmas for Turq: the household gift that year is a wok, Ansel and Janie having decided that with Turq around they need one. They have no idea how to pick out a good one, so they haul him off to the mall for post-holiday shopping. :D

Re: wrapping

[alatefeline]

Games sound like a great household gift, if you know your household!

Re: wrapping

[ysabetwordsmith]

I like getting (and giving) a variety of different things, albeit with the option of condensing if someone wants a big-ticket item. Scanty gifts hardly seem worth the effort. But it's not about having piles of stuff, it's about finding the right things. At least for me.

Re: wrapping

[alatefeline]

Yeah, the exact right thing is good to have. But it's both a talent for some people and a skill that takes practice for others, matching item to person on time and within budget and without leaving people out.

But we also have fun with a variety of trinkets and treats that have broad appeal and aren't much of a gift by themselves, like giving everyone an art bookmark and a worry stone and a handful of really good chocolates, put together with the odds and ends from everyone in a stocking with an orange in the toe and a candy cane hooked on the top. It's fun and easy and practically breakfast. And then we collaboratively make a really ridiculous brunch.

Re: wrapping

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> But we also have fun with a variety of trinkets and treats that have broad appeal and aren't much of a gift by themselves, like giving everyone an art bookmark and a worry stone<<

Yeah, batches of the same things spread around can work really well. Tiny little games are a favorite too.

>> and a handful of really good chocolates, put together with the odds and ends from everyone in a stocking with an orange in the toe and a candy cane hooked on the top.<<

Through all lives, I will enjoy getting food in a stocking, for memory of times when things like chocolates and oranges were hard to come by.

Re: wrapping

[alatefeline]

<3

OH! ANOTHER way to reduce!

[dialecticdreamer]

Some years ago, I got together with two very old friends to spend the day making the intricate holiday treats that we associated with our childhood memories, but which are almost never made during a busy work week, normally.

So, the presents were even splits of all our acceptable results (we taste-tested to guarantee that nothing burned, of course!) "wrapped" in a festive plastic food container with well-wishes written on the lid in permanent marker.

That became a tradition that's perfect for broke families: a tray of treats in lieu of spending money for a single small present for a family. For the same $10 for ingredients, I can make more things than I could easily list, while that same money will get one DVD, probably.

Re: OH! ANOTHER way to reduce!

[ysabetwordsmith]

One of the other things I'm quite fond of is festive food containers -- chiefly cookie tins, but I've got a few other examples. Part of the fun in passing around goodies is that it creates a slow exchange of these tins.

A cookie exchange is one of my favorite holiday activities, too. Everyone makes stuff to bring in, then you make up mixed plates for each person to take home. Or you can plate a few cookies for each recipient at home, but then you have more plates to juggle.

One time I made sheep for these -- the recipe was too labor-intensive for most uses but made a perfect centerpiece for a cookie plate. It used vanilla dough it tiny balls to make a cloud-shaped sheep body, then chocolate dough for the heads and feet. Everyone adored those, and they were yummy too. The recipe was similar to this:
http://www.bentomonsters.com/2015/02/sheep-cookie-bento.html

[technoshaman]

We never saved wrapping paper, but I'm sure Mother's box of bows has specimens 30 years old. We *always* saved the bows. (And she's got some *pretty* ones.)

*sigh* we haven't been together for ... HEY!

Okay, I'm Plotting.

Part of the problem of getting my folks out here for YulFestiMas is that the 25th is awfully close to the end of the month, and Mother insists on getting her bookwork for Dad's company out of the way on time.

Next year, Hanukkah begins 2 December after sundown. Better yet, November has 5 Thursdays again. PLENTY of time for Mum to get her Anatidae longitudinally aligned and get out to the Rock... bring on the latkes!

Mwah ha ha ha ha!

[we_are_spc]

We do some of this, but the problem with a lot of the electronic cards for us is that they don't work well wih the reader, especially when trying to send them. I was a happy peoples when we found out that Halmark had braille Christmas cards in several designs.

One thing we *do* do is recycle our Christmas tree. Indianapolis has several locations with which to do this, and the use them for the park's mulch. I didn't know about the living Christmas tree idea. That sounds like fun. Perhaps not this year-I'm not sure how I'd get the thing home without paying an arm and a leg for delivery... *sighs*

-Fallon~

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> We do some of this, but the problem with a lot of the electronic cards for us is that they don't work well wih the reader, especially when trying to send them. <<

That sucks. :(

I found an article comparing different ones, but as you pointed out, the options are bad.

>> I was a happy peoples when we found out that Halmark had braille Christmas cards in several designs.<<

Yay!

Also, nice cardstock is readily available at scrapbook stores, so anyone with a Brailler could make their own. It comes in all colors, and some have subtle textures like a ripple or just coarser paper. So you could make a textured frame and then a Braille message inside it.

>> One thing we *do* do is recycle our Christmas tree. Indianapolis has several locations with which to do this, and the use them for the park's mulch.<<

Yay! They make good brushpiles too. Some places put them in park corners for the birds. Others tie them together and sink them as fish habitat.

>> I didn't know about the living Christmas tree idea. That sounds like fun. Perhaps not this year-I'm not sure how I'd get the thing home without paying an arm and a leg for delivery... *sighs* <<

We used to do that when I was little, hence the Midwinter Grove here at Fieldhaven. But the climate has changed, and now I can't get evergreens to start anymore. :( I had a blue spruce going for a few years, but then a drought killed it.

[we_are_spc]

Oh, also? If you have little bits of herb mixtures left, you can use some of that scrap cloth lying around )For those who do) to make little nice smelling sashays. We did that one year and put them in ziplock baggies with little shapes on them to tell whose was whose. That plus a mix CD was it for us-and the mix CD might be again for us this year because very little money and very little craft ability due to not getting to classes in time for holidy decore.

Not to mention it's kinda hard to get stuff done and go places when all vR will pay for is school related trips, and you've done run out of open door passes. :(

But our family does the reusable giftbag thing, too, it's an awesome way to give nicely decorative things to people, and it's fun. :)

-Fallon~

Alas!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Not to mention it's kinda hard to get stuff done and go places when all vR will pay for is school related trips, and you've done run out of open door passes. :( <<

It sucks that this society does not think disabled people should be allowed to have a life.

[filkferengi]

My spouse insists on a real tree every year, but we always get it mulched, which goes to neighborhood parks. Sometimes they give out saplings; we've planted several.