Decorations without buying for Christmas

We've been a bit late with putting up our Christmas decorations this year, but with two days to go, we've finally got it sorted. Normally we love having a real Christmas tree, but I had a problem with that for two reasons. The first is that I would have to buy it and I can't really claim that it's a necessity, but in any case the second reason is that I think the Puppy would try to eat it! So instead of a real tree, we've dusted off an artificial one and put it in the dining room, where the Puppy is only allowed under supervision. But that left the problem of what to put in the sitting room? We had some sprayed silver twigs, but needed something a bit bigger, so I went into the garden to seek inspiration, and there I struck gold. We have two beautiful dogwood bushes with lovely red stems, so I cut half a dozen stems, popped them in a large gold pot on a small table, added fairy lights and decorations, and hey presto - we have a stylish (sort of) Christmas tree that's free, and out of Puppy reach!

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas!

Green Christmas tips - Wrapping Presents

Having finished my Christmas cards last week, I've now turned my attention to wrapping presents without spending any money on wrapping paper or ribbons. I've never been very good at beautifully wrapping presents as some of my friends do, so last year  I made an effort and added ribbons to all the presents. Not only did they look better, but I made sure to hang onto all the ribbons I had used so I could reuse them again this year. I have also got some paper that was left over from last year, so I could have just used that, but having enjoyed making Christmas cards, I thought I would try a little harder with the wrapping and show that it could be done stylishly, without the need for bought wrapping paper. So here's the results!

 

 For the men in my life, I used pages from an old Asterix book. The cover was torn, so it was too scruffy to give to a charity shop, but the pages make great wrapping. The ribbon was saved from last year, the bow saved from a present someone gave to us.
 

  For the other presents I used magazines from Christmas time last year. There was especially good photography in a homes magazine which I glued onto a shoe box to create a patchwork effect of Christmas images. 

For the smaller presents I just used a single page from one of the magazines. My favourite was the big reindeer picture in the top photo which was an advert in one of the magazines.

I am quite pleased with the results, now I will just have to wait and see if my friends like them too!

The art of not buying Christmas cards

This week it's been time to write Christmas cards. So I've turned my attention to how to do this without buying any new cards, and trying to be as green as possible. Having thought about my approach, I realise it's a new interpretation of that well known phrase, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Reduce (but without shedding friends...)

Firstly, I have used email to send a Christmas letter where possible. A couple of years ago I experimented with doing this and asking friends for feedback - did they mind not having a Christmas card and getting a letter by email instead? The majority of my friends were happy with this approach, a few said they preferred a real letter, so I will post to a few, but most of my friends who live a way away have been emailed, or sent a letter via Facebook. One of the advantages of this was that I found quite a few of my friends emailed me back, with news of their year, so it was more interactive than just posting a card into the void.

Reuse (last year's leftovers)

Secondly I have used up Christmas cards from previous years. Every year I normally buy or make some, but there's always a few left over, so they get put back in the box with the Christmas decorations. This year, I dug them all out and used them - hopefully no-one will mind if I've accidentally used the same design for them two years running! Surprisingly, I had almost enough cards, but did run out before I'd finished so I had to turn my attention to the third option, which is making my own.

Recycle  (new cards from recycled materials)

I've always enjoyed making Christmas cards, but it can be quite time consuming, so I was trying to find a way of producing simply made but effective cards that didn't take too long to make. So I spent an hour armed with card and glue that I already had, last year's John Lewis Christmas catalogue and some John Lewis stickers that I bought last year. I experimented with a number of designs, in the end my favourite one involved cutting out a square of text talking about Christmas, sticking it onto coloured card, then finishing it off with a penguin sticker or a smaller image cut out of the Christmas catalogue. In an hour I had produced about 15 cards, and was really pleased with the results, plus I had a warm fuzzy 'I've been creative' feel. My only regret was that I hadn't made more of the cards myself, as I'd already written a last years card to a lot of my best friends and it would have been nice to give them a handmade one. Never mind, there's always next year!

Green gifts for Christmas

As the present buying season builds up into full flow, several people have asked me how I'm doing my Christmas shopping this year whilst trying to avoid buying unnecessary 'things'. Two months ago I had a chance for a trial run at present giving without buying things when two of my teens had birthdays. My son was happy with the promise of driving lessons and a big bag of Skittles (sweets) so no problem there. For my daughter I wrapped up a couple of books that I had bought for her already, and we gave her money to spend as we were planning a trip to London on her birthday. She liked the freedom of spending the money, but she did confess that she does like the excitement of unwrapping something that was chosen specially for her. So for Christmas I'm going to have to try a bit harder.

So here's my thoughts on what I could aim for this Christmas.

1) Experiences.  Driving lessons, vouchers for the cinema or theatre, a promise of a meal out. These all fit perfectly into the doctrine of not buying physical stuff and focussing on doing rather than having.

2) Things that you know people need or are useful. Without giving the game away here, I've bought things for my teens as stocking fillers that I know they will use, plus little luxuries that I know that they will love which are consumable in some way - either edible or toiletries, either way they are useful and won't just be useless clutter.

3) Clothes. Again I've tried to make sure that these are things that my children want and are useful. No Christmas jumpers that only get worn once!

4) Books, games and music. I reckon that here you are mainly paying for someone's creativity, rather than something physical. In the era of downloads, this could be completely virtual, or even if it is a physical CD or game, it is easily reused if passed on to a charity shop afterwards, or even better, buy second hand in the first place if you can.

5) Buying ethically. So where I have bought actual stuff, I can try and direct my money well. So fairtrade chocolate from Oxfam, toiletries from Lush or Body Shop.

6) Buying second hand. Generally this is a good principle, although I haven't done any hunting round the charity shops this Christmas, that's mainly because part of the exercise for me is about not spending as much time shopping, but doing other things instead.

So that's the aim. I will report further on progress as the festive season continues!