I’m dreaming of a green XMas: Part 1

I’ve been thinking about doing the obligatory Christmas post and I realize, I have so much to say that it won’t all fit into one! So heres’ the first installment. Let’s call it gifts and Wrapping (catchy title huh?). Here goes.

Gifts that don’t require any wrapping

1.Gifts of the heart

So we all know that the world is unbalanced. Lots of us have too much stuff, while others have none. Boy am I eloquent today. Anyhow what I’m getting at is gifts of charity. You can buy a village a goat, or help a community plant a garden, or save a chunk of rain forest or adopt an endangered animal in someone Else’s name. The recipient gets a tax receipt, a little card explaining what has gone down and a warm fuzzy feeling. Here are a few sites to get you started:

http://www.changingthepresent.org

http://www.panda.org/how_you_can_help/gifts/index.cfm

2. Services

Coupons to do things for your friends and family make awesome gifts. Redeem this for 2 hours of babysitting, one home cooked meal, one clean bathroom etc.

Or if you also don’t have time, hire a housekeeper for them or get a hairdressing, spa, massage or shiatsu, bike tune-up….etc etc gift certificate.

3.Gift certificates- preferably for small local businesses
Big businesses like Indego have plastic cards wrapped in plastic. Bah!:(

Gifts to wrap and what to wrap them in:

1.Craft fairs
Craft Fairs, church Fairs or local artists sites have a large variety of unique local gifts to choose from. On Saturday, Aurora and I went to a green gift fair put on by GET and found some pretty great stuff-mostly gifts to me though!

2.Food

Front Door Organics allows you to buy a fresh box for some one you love, or to donate one to the food bank. You have to be careful if you are garbage free though because sometimes there are bags are plastic boxes included. Also making people soup or jam or cookies usually goes over well.

3.DIY
If you’ve got the time- why not make your gifts?
Past gifts I have made include t-shirts, knitted scarves or wrist bands, and cookies.
Check out ideal bite for more idea’s.

Wrapping
My Mom always made us gift bags. If you sew, it’s very easy and then you can reuse them for lunch bags or to keep your treasures in. Kyle uses one that I made him to keep books that he is reading in. I’ll try to post a picture soon. You can also buy fabric gift bags at Grassroots.
You can also reuse old wrapping or newspapers. When I was in art school, I wrapped all my gifts in unwanted drawings done on newsprint. People were usually pretty pleased-sometimes they kept the drawing too. We also keep all the regular (non fabric) gift bags people give us and give them again. Oh and at my baby shower, lots of people wrapped their gifts in tea towels and fabric ribbon, which I thought was a great idea!

Advertisement