What 'newer' Christmas traditions could be scrapped to help save the planet

I often wonder if many people use those expensive boxed sets of toiletries, often complete with a sponge or a fancy soap dish, that only seem to be on sale at Christmas?

Or are they just regifted year after year?

Which I suppose is quite environmentally friendly

Actually, you can buy environmentally friendly Christmas crackers. There was a thread about them last year I think.

Beswitched

Christmas crackers could probably be modified. How many people actually use the plastic gifts inside? If they just contained a paper hat and joke and the whole thing was made of recyclable paper would it negatively affect anyone's Christmas?

Afraid to say we like the daft tat that comes in crackers - part of the fun of Christmas dinner. I only ever buy cheap ones. The ‘quality’ gifts* in more expensive ones are usually still tat anyway. And I don’t want chocolates inside - we always have more than enough of those in this house at Christmas.

*though we did once keep one of those mini screwdriver sets, which is useful now and then.

Things I would ban altogether as they are so bad for the planet they upset me:
* anything that goes up in the sky (balloons and lamps)
* plastic or foil wrapping paper (can't be recycled)
* glitter!!!!!

Maggiemaybe

I love the Elf on the Shelf! He just turns up mysteriously on the first of December and then every morning till Christmas. He’s famously cheeky, and can be found driving a toy car, on the side of the kitchen sink with a fishing rod made of pencil and string, tangled up in SpiderMan’s web or the Christmas tree lights, making snow angels in flour on the kitchen table, etc, etc. Little ‘uns love looking for him every morning and I don’t really see where damage to the planet comes in?

There’s a slightly creepy school of thought that has the Elf spying on children to check that they’re being good in the run up to Christmas. We don’t buy into that.

That was how the elf on the shelf originated. A mother in Georgia in the 1970s told her daughters he was flying up to the North Pole every night to tell Santa if they'd been good. And she would put him in slightly different places every morning to prove he had been out of the house.
I think her daughters wrote a book about it when they were grown up, and the Marketing people jumped in.

I’ve got to confess I gather up all the discarded cracker toys as well and stick them back in next year’s crackers. Sometimes someone actually takes that mini screwdriver set or tiny notebook home with them.

I love the Elf on the Shelf! He just turns up mysteriously on the first of December and then every morning till Christmas. He’s famously cheeky, and can be found driving a toy car, on the side of the kitchen sink with a fishing rod made of pencil and string, tangled up in SpiderMan’s web or the Christmas tree lights, making snow angels in flour on the kitchen table, etc, etc. Little ‘uns love looking for him every morning and I don’t really see where damage to the planet comes in?

There’s a slightly creepy school of thought that has the Elf spying on children to check that they’re being good in the run up to Christmas. We don’t buy into that.

Thankfully both those additions have yet to enter this family and I have only ever seen balloon arches in shops and pubs.

I infuriate my family by unwrapping presents very slowly, to make sure the wrapping paper can be reused another year, and my daughter recently referred disparragingly to the bag of stick on bows and rosettes, that I bring out and stick on presents each year. She swears I have had some of them since she was a child (she is nearly 50).

lovebeigecardigans1955

I think the Elf on the Shelf and Christmas Eve boxes are superfluous to requirements.

I’ve. Ever heard of either of these things ! But then again I’m slightly Christmas phobic.

Christmas crackers could probably be modified. How many people actually use the plastic gifts inside? If they just contained a paper hat and joke and the whole thing was made of recyclable paper would it negatively affect anyone's Christmas?

Change over to rechargable batteries. I like the little independent strings of fairy lights that don't need an electric socket nearby, and have a few dotted about the house at Christmas, but they take 3 AA batteries each. When our supply of conventional ones has run out, I think I'll get a couple of dozen rechargeable ones, as I don't think they last quite as long, so may need replacing more often.

Not to mention the toys and gadgets that need them.

Tizliz

Balloons. Apart from the fact that I hate balloons, why is it suddenly fashionable to have decorative balloon arches? You can’t reuse them. How long do they last? Not recyclable, and dangerous to animals if they fly away. Anyone else here hate balloons touching them? Or am I strange?

No, you are not strange Tizliz I don’t like balloons either and it’s very difficult for others to understand. They are second, after eight legs, on my list of hates.

Last year I bought foreign newspapers, Japaneseand Chinese were good, and wrapped presents in those. A great talking point, they looked good and went straight on the fire the next morning. Haven’t been able to get any this year so shall use Welsh ones .

lemongrove

Christmas Boxes...given to children on Christmas Eve and stuffed with presents that they don’t need.

As if what they're getting on the actual day isn't enough!!
That has got yo be another American thing that's come over.

They sound gorgeous!
I only buy for my boys, though, and my neighbour can have last years paper.

Has anyone seen recycled sari bags? We got presents in them last year, lovely bright fabric made into drawstring bags and we will be returning them this year with presents in.

I thought they were a wonderful idea, not sure where they get the old saris from but a great idea and so easy.

I save all that stuff.
Not sure if anyone has realised their presents are wrapped in the same paper it has been for the last 20 years.

Am I the only one who salvages wrapping paper, ribbon, gift bags etc from their bin bag when the family goes home and saves it all for next year? I have a huge box of preloved gift wrap under a spare bed and another with birthday gift bags etc - I very rarely buy more. I cut down cards too to make gift tags, and always save tissue and interesting boxes from deliveries.

I have Christmas plates and dishes, mugs, glasses, towels, tea towels. Most of them at least 40 years old and brought out every year for a month or so. They’re not wasteful if they last a lifetime.

And I love the Elf on the Shelf tradition.

Our Christmas decks are used year after year. This year its all recyclable wrapping paper and gift tags no frilly bows or ribbons.

Apologies. I thought you meant you buy one present in work, for someone in the office you've known for 12 years.

Yes it is we draw name out of hat.

Well that's not really a Secret Santa then.
I have a couple of ex colleagues I buy for at Christmas.

We buy 1 present for someone in our office. I have known them for 12 years. Certainly in some jobs I have spent more time with my colleagues than with my family.

Casdon

Secret Santa has been going for 50 years at least, my school friends and I used to do it in the 70s. It’s actually a good way of reducing plastic rubbish to get one slightly more expensive item somebody wants rather than 6 cheap things they don’t surely?
I hate to see all the food waste at Christmas though, the country seems to go into siege mentality, when the shops are only closed for one or two days, and people end up ditching the entire groaning contents of their fridges when they start diets on New Years Day. So wasteful.

I think there's 2 kinds of secret santa nowadays. One where a bunch of friends or family members who would be buying presents for each other anyway decide to draw names out of a hat and just buy one present each.

The other kind is when a workplace organises a secret santa when everyone has to pull out a name and then buy that person a present for a set amount, usually not more than a tenner.
Cue lots of people trying to buy something amusing for Don in Accounts or Shirley in IT and lots of people receiving santa shaped cookie jars, Christmas themed earrings, sexy stockings etc that will just get thrown out or given to the charity shop.

I have Christmas decorations that go back to mine and my parent's childhoods.

I suspect that all the outside lighting we have now, because it is all based on very low consumption LED bulbs probably uses less electricity than the small set of 12 or 24 lights that illuminated our tree when we were children.