‘tis the season for many cultures around the world to celebrate different major holidays, with many of those traditions including the exchanging of gifts. as people become more aware and concerned about the current climate crises, it can feel overwhelming to see the amount of waste typically generated during this season. that doesn’t have to be the case though! here are some of our* top tips and tricks for incorporating low-waste options into your gift-giving this season (and year-round - any gift can benefit from low-waste packaging no matter what the occasion!):

use part of your gift as the wrapping material - bandanas for fabric wrapping for smaller gifts or a handmade bag make for beautiful gifts and can hide more goodies while you’re at it!

scour the closet - button-ups with long sleeves work great for wrapping up slightly larger boxes. it might take you a bit of time to finesse the final wrapping presentation, but this is also a good time to practice letting go of the idea that something needs to look “perfect” and “polished.” it can look sweet and thoughtful and if it’s a little rough around the edges the first few times you try it out, it’s honestly totally fine.

do the alberg special and use newspaper! favourite options include the comics and horoscope pages, but depending on your audience, you can tailor it to their personal tastes - cooking, world news, sports… if you want to get extra fancy, stashbust with old yarn instead of twine and use a different type of preserved food for each person (oranges, grapefruit, lime, lemon, cinnamon sticks, different shapes of cut out cookies…). just remember to make a key for yourself so you can remember whose gift belongs to whom!

some extra ideas include:

don’t wrap the gifts - instead, hide them and take turns hunting for them
again, skip wrapping the gifts and instead wrap up your recipient (minds out of the gutter here…) - use a blindfold and make your recipient guess what gift is in their hands before they can remove the blindfold for the big reveal
if you have oodles of reusable grocery bags kicking around the house, now is a great time of year to make extra use of them! put heavier items in them and use newspaper or recycled gift wrap as tissue paper to hide the contents until it’s time to unwrap them
skip the need for gift wrap altogether and gift digital items (like ebooks or patterns) or give the gift of an experience together

the most important thing is to have fun with it all and give gifts that are meaningful and within your budget. no need to go into debt or gift random shit just for the sake of giving something if it won’t be appreciated and put to good use.

*big thanks to lyle for coming up with and wrapping our sample gifts for this week’s blog post.

slow living: low-waste gift wrapping