It’s time to ANTI-HAUL the wasteful trends & traditions that I do not wish for Christmas this year…
While I love Christmas there is a lot of wasteful traditions and trends surrounding this holiday. Inspired by Shelbi also known as Shelbizleee on Youtube I decided to put together a Christmas anti-haul to hopefully inspire you to make less wasteful choices this holiday season.
Let’s save our money and make wiser choices for our planet this year! ✨🙏🏻🌍
Watch the video above for the full rant… 😉
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WHAT I AM NOT GONNA BUY/DO (and you should consider avoiding as well):
- Fast fashion Christmas jumpers/Holiday sweaters
- Food waste & food that nobody likes but you still serve “because it’s tradition”
- Christmas Crackers with that plastic thingie inside
- Cheap Christmas decor to be replaced every year
- Gifts that nobody wants
Less wasteful alternatives
Christmas jumpers
I love a good Christmas jumper and I think if you, like me, enjoy wearing them you should! But there are better alternatives for our planet than buying a new one from a fast-fashion store.
If you already own one – keep on wearing it! If you want a new (to you) holiday sweater I would recommend buying one second hand. I saw lots of Christmas jumpers at Value Village just the other week. Another alternative is to swap/borrow jumpers with your friends & family.
If you are like me and love to make your own clothes you might want to either considering knitting one from scratch like I did when I made The Perfect Christmas Jumper by Susan Crawford (pictured above) or upcycling an old sweater from your wardrobe or the thrift store (see my TikTok below for upcycling ideas).
Want to learn how to upcycle your own sweaters/jumpers? Check out my tutorials linked down below:
- DIY Upcycled Christmas Ornament Sweater
- DIY Christmas Tree Sweater from Tacky Xmas Ties
- DIY Cute Penguin Christmas Sweater
Want more upcycling inspiration? Check out my other upcycling-tutorials here.
Reduce food waste
One of the biggest issues I think when it comes to food waste at Christmas is that we make way too much. Check out the Portion Planner to ensure you only make what you need. I also found these tips on how to reduce Christmas food waste really helpful.
Another great resource is the blog Zero-Waste Chef. I have through the past couple of years learned so many great ways to reduce my food waste all year round through her blog and here is a great post on how to tackle food waste off the Thanksgiving menu but all the suggestions are applicable to any other holiday.
Christmas cracker alternatives
If you love the tradition of Christmas Crackers make sure to look for the ones that do not contain the inexpensive plastic gift inside. Personally, I love the act of snapping the cracker, wearing the crown, and reading the joke. I do not know about you but the gift has always in my experience been tossed aside to be never seen again in favour of these.
After I made this video one of you recommended me to check out Crackers without the crap, and I also found these Fabric Reusable Christmas Crackers which you can personalize and reuse year after year from the Etsy shop Matchimony. I also like these from the Etsy shop extraspecialtouch as well. Of course, you can also make your own.
Better Christmas decor
The simplest and most inexpensive way to buy more eco-friendly and less wasteful Christmas decor is to buy used. Thrift stores are a good place to look for things like fairy lights/Christmas tree lights, tree skirts and Christmas tree-stands. I saw a whole aisle consisting of these at Value Village and Goodwill last week, as well another aisle full of Christmas baubles, ornaments and other decorations.
A lot of the decor at the thrift store isn’t always to my taste but in my experience, you can always find something that suits your style. For example, last year I found some Scandi-inspired placemats in a red & white-pattern which I absolutely love decorating my dining table with during the holidays.
If you buy new decor make sure to pay attention to what they are made of and avoid buying anything that looks like it will break easily. Invest slowly in decorations, if possible, to ensure that you only buy things that you want to keep long term. I know this can be easier said than done but many DIY decorations like dried oranges, popcorn-garlands, pine cones & twigs, gingerbread men & houses etc. are great decorations to use instead of/until you have more decorations that you love.
You can find more ideas on low waste Christmas decorations here.
Gifts that people actually want
My best gift giving-tip to the people closest to you in your life is to ask them what they want for Christmas and/or pay attention throughout the year to what they mention that they would just love to have (and making notes of this on your phone).
This can, of course, be harder when it comes to hosts/hostesses you barely know, your kid’s teacher, distant relatives etc. I think the best gift you can give to these people are things like nice tea, chocolates, coffee, sourdough bread, cookies, jams & chutneys, flowers/a plant, a bottle of wine or kombucha etc. Go for homemade or things that are a little bit nicer than most people normally buy for themselves. Unless of course, you know they love a specific thing like PG tips or a specific type of candy.
Studies show that experiences bring more happiness than stuff so with that in mind consider giving someone in your life an experience. It doesn’t need to be expensive either – sometimes just giving someone your time is the best gift we can give. Click here for ideas on experiences as gifts.
Gift wrapping is another area that can create a lot of waste – consider wrapping your gifts in furoshiki – reusable Japanese fabric wrapping. I have a full tutorial on how you can make your own furoshiki here. If you do not want to make your own you will find many beautiful designs on Etsy.
In my tutorial on how to make your own furoshiki, I am also showing you 4 different ways to wrap your gifts with furoshiki. I have also another tutorial where I am going through 5 additional ways on how you can wrap with furoshiki here.
Other gift wrap-alternatives include using recycled paper e.g. the brown paper many companies now use in place of plastic in their shipments (yay!) or magazine clippings, cloth bags that the recipient can reuse as produce bags (you can get some here), and repurposed jars (Zero-Waste Chef has 13 ideas on gifts in jars here).
If you need to ship things make sure to ship your gifts in reused padded envelopes & cardboard boxes, and you can tape them together using plastic-free glue & homemade paper tape.
I really hope these tips inspired you to celebrate a more low waste Christmas this year. If you want more tips on how to reduce waste in 2020 check out my other blog posts on low waste living here.
✨ Wishing you all a Merry Christmas! ✨
Do you have more tips on how to reduce your waste during the holidays? Leave a comment down below and let me know!
