Christmas spending v saving the planet

My present shopping starts by finding what the recipients would like to receive, so that things are not unused or thrown out quickly.

The list I end up dictates what i buy and where it gets bought. My preference is local, but living in a village and with town centres being so empty, not just because of online, but also because so many stores have upped sticks to scatter themselves on the outskirts of towns, online is often the most environmentally friendly way to shop.

I'm with you Monica and most of mine is already done.

Everything I buy this year is made in the Uk and will be useful to the recipient. My Christmas dinner is coming from Cooks tomorrow so I will neither be going out to an expensive venue or having any leftovers to waste.

The children will get presents but I thought I'd buy them a tree each to be planted in the National Forest as well.

I have bought trees for them before.
www.nationalforest.org/get-involved/plant-a-tree/dedicate-a-tree?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxrqJqN__8wIVVu3tCh2RAgyVEAAYAyAAEgKPTvD_BwE

I’ve had a ‘minimise the plastic tat’ rule for a few years now. I’d rather spend one larger sum on one decent present than several small things that will end up in the bin. It’ll be useful things, clothing items, books etc.

But 25Avalon, the leftovers are the best part of the Christmas eating season. The only excuse for ever wasting food is not having a freezer. We will be having Christmas pie, fricassees, pasta dishes, curries, not to mention refreshing turkey and ham sandwiches.

Even last year when I ordered a big turkey for 7 and 2 of us sat down to eat it. not a fragment was wasted. I cut the turkey in half and kept one half in the freezer for Easter and the rest got eaten in all the usual ways.

I'm glad I don't go wandering around the shops at Christmas any more. It would horrify me seeing so much stuff piled high, silly games and novelty items bought just for the sake of it. People are obsessed with wrapping something and handing it over, no matter how stupid the item. This has to stop.

Chestnut I so agree!
Present giving for us is now just the immediate family ( can hand them over as fortunately all live close) and a few small presents for good friends.
Shopping near Christmas can be panic inducing so the less done the better.

Same here lemongrove. I find Christmas excess off putting.

I've just had a week's holiday in Cornwall and as much as possible bought my Christmas presents there. They are all local, mainly craft and clothing.
Even a Rick Stein Christmas pudding!

I'm glad so many of you agree with me.
I'm resolving to do my best to eliminate waste and Christmas can't be an exception.

There are still too many businesses selling tat though and people will buy it.

I'm buying British,shopping locally at independent shops where possible and am going to ask my family in future not to buy any gift sets with loads of packaging. Just something small and thoughtful like an organic bath bomb or some seeds or reusable stuff for the garden will do me.

Thank you for the link Calistemon I’ll do the same for the GC’s.
As a family, we do lists, so no haphazard gifts are bought, only 7 In the family.
We too have half a turkey in the freezer from last year and stuffing. We all changed to brown paper wrapping a couple of years ago.

The excess in the shops makes me feel very uncomfortable. So much rubbish destined for landfill. Party poppers, plastic bows and ribbon and |Chinese plastic holly 'parcel toppers''....all just totally unnecessary cr@p sold to us on the basis that 'It's not Christmas until you've pulled a cracker (full of plastic junk) or opened a stocking (full of plastic junk).

My friend does a brilliant thing when buying presents. She only buys locally made things like honey, useful fabric shopping bags and hand knitted walking socks. She then wraps them up using garden string (which I can then use for tying up plants) and old newspaper. She chooses the newspaper pages to suit the recipient so I always get the gardening articles and puzzle pages. When I'm done with the paper I use it again for cleaning windows and then put it in the compost. Nothing wasted at all!

Yes, absolutely agree. We can all help by buying less tat.
Christmas is a terrible spend fest.
And maybe we should think about buying less clothes too.,
I'm as guilty as anybody as having too many clothes. So I'm buying no more unless really vital.

Help! I’d love to stop buying plastic ‘rubbish’, but my 3 grandchildren have Christmas Eve stockings at our house that I fill with that sort of stuff. They obviously have come to expect them now, so what do I do??? They are not the type of children that would appreciate adopting a goat

Newspaper pages to suit the recipient. I like that Scones. That’s thoughtful present giving.

Soroptimum Oh you made me laugh about the goat. just imagine! I don't know if I'm allowed to advertise on here, but there are lots of eco friendly toy companies you can find on the net. I buy home made craft toys as village all Craft fairs. Also, how about buying all the 'plastic tat' from charity shops - at least that ways it's being recycled and you're not buying new. Would probably be cheaper too.

Lately I’ve seen several posts (not necessarily on here) from people lamenting the fact that so much food gets binned (by themselves) after Christmas. Maybe I’m being a bit dense, but why buy too much in the first place?

It all gets eaten up here - one reason I enjoy the week between Christmas and New Year is all the lovely leftovers - I even enjoy making turkey stew with stock from the carcass.

I do try to cut down on plastic now, but I’m afraid I will still buy crackers - the fairly cheap ones with little bits of tat in - to us they’re part of the fun of Christmas dinner. The ‘quality’ gifts in more expensive ones are so often useless anyway, and I don’t want crackers with chocolates - we always have more than enough chocolate at Christmas anyway.

Should have added that in our local charity shops I often find second hand toys still with tags on or in their original packaging. I bought this lot in a charity shop for £5!!

Oh Scones when I was speed reading your post I thought you said hand knitted walking sticks, not socks .!! We too avoid tat and plastic rubbish, I do quite a lot of my shopping on sites such as Etsy or Not on The High Street. We don't have food waste as we buy what we plan on eating ( quite a lot though), and because we have a dog who gets left over veg.

I like the idea of the newspaper wrapping.
I have been shopping in our local charity shops for the past couple of months and have managed to get lots of things for the grandchildren-still in the original packaging, books, dressing up stuff, board games, an easel - it is really amazing what you can find.

Soroptimum you don’t say how old your GC are but it’s really quite simple. If they still believe in Santa you can tell them Santa is concerned about climate change and wants people to stop using plastics etc. If they’re older then the simple facts of reducing tat should be acceptable to them. Tell them it’s for their own future!

Scones

Should have added that in our local charity shops I often find second hand toys still with tags on or in their original packaging. I bought this lot in a charity shop for £5!!

Yes, charity shop toys are often brilliant. When Gdd1 was just two I bought a big pink (plastic I’m afraid) Disney Princess castle from the local hospice shop, for £8. It was to keep here for when she visited,
She’s now 6, with two siblings of 5 and nearly 2, and they all still love playing with it.
Nearly everything else in the toy box here is also either from charity shops, or else kept from when dds were little.