Periodically over the last year or two, I’ve been thinking, “Gee, I really should stop using wrapping paper, because it can’t be recycled.” But old habits die hard and I never made the time to figure out what else to do. When Eleanor declared her college major was environmental studies, I heaved a heavy sigh and thought, “Oh, all right, I guess I’ll just have to help save the earth.”
But all the time I was thinking, “I know I’m supposed to use brown paper bags, but they are just so drab. Some folks get their small children to stamp adorable, Christmas-themed images all over their brown paper wrapped gifts, or scribble charming Christmas-themed drawings all over them with brightly colored crayons, but small children are all so busy these days. I can’t think of any I could feasibly borrow for any length of time without someone alerting the authorities. And who knows how much these small artists charge? Do they have agents? Well, at least I can reuse the few Christmas-themed, gift bags folks have given us over the years, but once we have all given each other bottles of wine, then what?”
I went on line to research environmental gift wrapping. I was horrified to learn that HALF of the paper used in the US each year is for wrapping or decorating. HALF! Holy Toledo! Well, that got me motivated to try harder to be environmental. Some ideas I found online were:
- Wrap gifts in newspaper, outdated maps, magazine pages, unwanted sheet music (this seems criminal to me, but some people are heathens), children’s art work (this seems really cruel to me, but perhaps one is supposed to use other peoples’ kids’ artwork? I have no idea how they get it.)
- Create reusable gift boxes, and bags to use over again each Christmas to put things in. One person even covered cereal boxes and toilet paper rolls cores in decorative paper, and tied them with pretty ribbons, decorative string, etc. ecobnb.com/blog/2015/11/eco-friendly-gift-wrap-ideas/
- Use mason jars with colorful ribbons or fabrics tied around the lids.
- Use brightly colored fabric from all those sewing projects you never completed. (You don’t have to actually sew the fabric around the gift… There is actually a whole Japanese art of wrapping fabric around gifts. Here is a link: invaluable.com/blog/furoshiki/)
- Buy (or make) two large, reusable, soft cloth sacks to put presents in one at a time. Enlist the help of two or more “elves” in your family to put one gift in each bag out of the sight of the person who is to receive the gift. Then, bring that sack to the person who is to receive the gift. The receiver then takes the gift out of the sack and the empty sack is returned to the elf to put the next gift in. Family members could take turns being the elf for each other. Or if this is too cumbersome, simply use one big Santa sack to hold all of the gifts for one person. The person receiving the gifts would have to reach into the sack with eyes closed to avoid seeing the other unwrapped gifts in the sack.
- The last idea is to give gifts that don’t take up any physical space such as outings, events, etc. My husband for years at Christmas has been handing us cards with images of the gift we will be enjoying. When we finally got cable TV, the kids and I jumped up and down and screamed for close to ten minutes. Ah, those were the days… Merry Christmas!!
Ronda Yeomans for the Green Team