Christmas spending v saving the planet

Scrooge here. Don’t believe in Christmas. Only buy presents for under 16s so they are not disappointed - last year the youngest GD got a second hand bike. I buy presents when I see something someone I know would really like or, like this week, I feel they deserve something - GD has corvid so sent her a present to help amuse her.

Many thanks for the suggestions. I’m off to scour the charity shops

I wish I knew someone in W London who likes wine - I really want to buy a voucher for NEWTS!

I don’t think these need to be mutually exclusive .
Christmas is not measured in plastic tat and oversized tins of Quality Street.
There are lots of excellent ideas on here already for carefully chosen presents which will not endanger the planet.

Soroptimum

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

When my children were young I used to buy lots of bits and pieces from charity shops for their stockings; little toys, games, ornaments etc., even plastic 'tat'! That way I wasn't supporting the producers of said tat, but the charity I bought from. They loved opening their stockings!

I've been looking for experiences rather than physical gifts. If anyone lives in West London, I was very pleased to find a 'wine tasting' club that sells vouchers so your receivee can choose which event they attend.

It is called the North Ealing Wine Tasting Society - NEWTS. They have a website and are on Facebook too. Vouchers are £20 and they have Covid 19 procedures in place. I've bought for my lifetime friend for her special 'pensionable birthday'.

I wrap gifts in brown paper, but I do love the idea of using 'relevant' pages from magazines, brilliant idea, off for a quick rifle through the paper recycling box.......

Thank you very much for the tree planting link @Calistemon, what a perfect gift for my children.

HA! Hand knitted walking sticks. That would be some stiff wool!!

Eviebeanz yes it's incredible what you find. Wrapping paper and beautiful toiletry gift sets all still sealed in their original packaging.

Walking the dog last week I noticed about 20 nerf gun bullets strewn around my local park. Obviously just fired once and left behind. Two days later they were still there so I picked them up and took them to the charity shop - I wonder if they will appear in some lucky child's Christmas stocking courtesy of an eco-warrior, penny-saving Gransnet grandma?

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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'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!

Same here lemongrove. I find Christmas excess off putting.