Christmas is such an exciting time of year for children. While family, food and fun fill up most of our days, there’s no denying that it can also be a time when our environment takes a hit from packaging and gift-wrapping waste.
That’s why in our latest blog we decided to find 5 fun ways to make your Christmas wrapping more sustainable in 2021. It’s a great way to maintain the fun of gift-giving without the guilt that comes from black bags full of rubbish. Let’s take a closer look and see what we can change for a more sustainable gift-wrapping result.
Furoshiki is the Japanese art of wrapping gifts in cloth. Traditionally done using squares of fabric made from cotton, nylon, silk or rayon, the benefit of wrapping in fabric is that it removes waste and gives two gifts at once – the present and the fabric.
Furoshiki is eco-friendly, versatile and beautiful. You can read more about it in this article from waste4change.com as well as getting top tips on how to make your own fabric squares and the proper way to wrap your gift.
Brown Kraft paper stands out from normal decorated wrapping paper because it can be recycled, composted, or saved for lighting fires when the seasons swing around again.
Versatile in use, Kraft paper is also versatile in the ways that you can use it for wrapping gifts. You can choose ready-decorated Kraft paper that you buy in a store, or buy it plain and ask your children to personalise sheets of it either before or after you use it to wrap your Christmas gifts.
Kraft also lends itself to beautiful sustainable accessories like sprigs of pine, flowers (lavender looks beautiful and smells nice too) or beautiful string. With Kraft paper your Christmas gifts can turn into a foraging and decorating adventure.
There’s nothing quite as precious as the art that our children create but sometimes the volumes of it that we store can get a little overwhelming. If you’re ready to choose your favourites and repurpose the rest, Christmas gift wrapping provides a wonderful option.
Your children will love the fact that each recipient of a gift also gets a special piece of their art at the same time. And of course for everyone who receives a gift it’s a double present – art and gift together (just remind them to open their presents carefully).
It’s probably fair to say most of us have had enough of the news in 2021, so now’s a great time to recycle a bit of it to give some pleasure. Newspaper is often readily available – check public spaces like your local library for old copies – and makes an easy and sustainable alternative to wrapping paper.
Want to jazz it up a bit? Try using some reusable red string or ribbon (fabric not plastic) and adding decoration in the form of sprigs of pine or flowers. You can also get your children involved by asking them to draw pictures on the newspaper or turn all the people in the photos into Christmas characters with Santa hats and reindeer antlers. Lots of fun!
Using fabric bags rather than plastic is an important part of looking after the environment. Sometimes though, we do discover our tote bag collection is getting out of control. Christmas offers a great opportunity to sort out your tote bags and use the ones you don’t need to package up some Christmas gifts.
If your tote bags have supermarket logos on them – don’t despair. Often you can get rid of these by turning them inside out, then consider what decorations you could add (stars, ribbons, colourful string) that could make them look a little more festive and welcoming.
The nicer the bag, the better the gift giving option. Giving a lovely tote bag that can be used again is another opportunity to give 2 gifts in one and make your packaging more sustainable along the way.
We hope you’ve enjoyed these options for a more sustainably wrapped Christmas Day. Give them a try and share them with your friends and family and share a more varied and exciting range of wrapped gifts under your Christmas tree this year.