Let’s create eco-friendly Christmas habits every family will love! Yes, you heard me right. You can celebrate a more eco-friendly Christmas that your family will love while still being mindful of the environment.
The Christmas season is the largest commercial holiday of the year. For at least two months straight, we are inundated with holiday ads and marketing to drive our consumption habits and purchases more. As we know, purchasing more and overconsuming is one of the least eco-friendly things you can do. Instead, we can create better, more eco-friendly Christmas habits your family will love.
I’m incredibly excited to share these 9 eco-friendly Christmas habits:
1. Rethink Wrapping Paper
Instead of buying traditional wrapping paper, consider including a new eco-friendly Christmas habit with more sustainable gift-wrapping options.
More often than not, when we think about paper we immediately think – it must be recyclable, that’s not necessarily the case! Wrapping paper with foil, metallic, and even glitter is often not recyclable. When we throw items into the recycling bin that cannot be recycled, we are doing more damage to the recycling system than good. Instead of purchasing the item and then figuring out what to do with it, it is always best to not purchase that item at all.
Research has found that in the UK alone, the amount of wrapping paper the country throws out at Christmas would stretch to the moon. As a single-use item, reducing or eliminating our use of wrapping paper is an excellent way to practice a more eco-friendly Christmas.
Your family will love your alternatives to wrapping paper because it will be both unique and thoughtful.
Here are some ideas to create an eco-friendly Christmas habit of rethinking wrapping paper:
- Use paper bags (or brown paper) from groceries to make DIY wrapping paper. Have your kids decorate the paper and customize it for each person. We use stickers, markers, ribbons, and bows.
- Use tea towels or scarves to wrap presents
- Reuse gift bags
- Reusable bags
- No wrapping at all
Predecorated kraft Christmas wrapping paper:
Predocrated kraft paper Christmas bags:
2. Practice a simplified Christmas
A simplified Christmas is a Christmas experience that focuses less on the number of material items and more on exchanging meaningful, useful items. In 2020, the average amount spent on holiday items is about $1,000 in the United States (source). Practicing a simplified Christmas not only decreases waste and consumption, but it also is less expensive. Your family will love this eco-friendly Christmas habit because it shifts the focus of Christmas from materialistic to meaningful and fun!
One of my favorite ways to practice a simplified Christmas is to set limits on how much can be purchased.
Here are some ideas to simplify your Christmas:
- Minimal Christmas Exchange
- Secret Santa
- White Elephant (no gag gifts allowed)
- Do a swap eg. clothing swap, wine swap, shoe swap, etc.
Related Post: Simplified Christmas: Ideas For A Minimal Christmas Gift Exchange
3. Be mindful of what you buy
During the holiday season, purchasing Christmas gifts can quickly shift from showing someone you can through the items you’ve gotten for them to overspending, overbuying, and over-purchasing as if more gifts mean more love. In order to live a more eco-conscious life for our family, we should focus on what we purchase and the impact those purchases have on the environment.
On average, only half of the gifts that are returned to the store are actually re-shelved or repurchased! This means about $15.2 billion dollars worth of gifts is thrown away each year (source). That is a lot of waste! Be incredibly mindful of the gifts you are choosing for your loved ones this year.
Purchase only gifts your family will love!
Related Post: 43 sustainable gift ideas to consider for everyone in your family!
4. Purchase eco-friendly Christmas cards
This is an eco-friendly Christmas habit we can all enjoy – purchase eco-friendly Christmas cards! Gathering for a Christmas photo is expected during the holiday season. Whether you’re wearing matching pajamas or coordinating outfits, it is a common holiday tradition to create Christmas cards to send to your family during this time of year.
Did you know the 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill a football field 10 stories high? (source). This year, consider purchasing eco-friendly Christmas cards from a company that considers the environment.
Tree-Free Greeting Cards:
These cards are adorable and made from recycled paper! When possible, buying items made from recycled content is best. This helps give new life to items that someone else no longer wanted without extracting as many new materials to create a new item. In addition, these cards are thick and sturdy and processed in the United States with wind power!
Paper Culture:
All cards created with Paper Culture are also made from recycled paper! In addition, this company works to offset its carbon footprint and plant a tree with every order. Last year, I planted a tree in honor of my grandmother who passed away, and got to share that with my mom. It created an even deeper appreciation for the holiday cards.
5. Give
Christmas time is the season of giving. This is perfectly aligned with eco-conscious living because our actions for the planet not only benefit our lives but the lives of those in the future. It is only appropriate to create an eco-friendly Christmas habit that revolves around giving back to others. Your family will love this giving makes us feel good. In fact, statistics have shown that giving actually makes you happier! Don’t hold back on this eco-friendly Christmas habit, it’s one that can help others as well as yourself.
Here are some ideas to give this Christmas:
- Donate food items
- Donate clothing
- Serve others
- Sponsor a family
- Volunteer
- Give to a church or community center
- Purchase from businesses that donate and give
6. Reuse
Reusing is a great habit year-round, but especially during Christmas time.
Your family will love this eco-friendly Christmas habit because it’s a fun and creative way to get into the Christmas spirit! Make an event out of reusing items for various purposes to reduce waste and pollution.
Here are some ideas to reuse:
- Reuse old boxes for gifts
- Use the packing peanuts, wrapping plastic, and tissue paper in your own Christmas gifts
- Take old paper grocery bags and reuse them for wrapping paper
- Use pillowcases, towels, scarves, and sheets for wrapping paper
- Reuse condiment jars and empty food containers to give away holiday leftovers and reduce food waste
- Find items from your recycling bin to repurpose into cool Christmas crafts (Pinterest will give you tons of ideas!)
7. Purchase secondhand
Buying secondhand is an eco-friendly Christmas habit your family will love because it is an excellent way to find unique items for the people in your life. You know the saying, one (wo)man’s trash is another (wo)man’s treasure. Most of us are diligent about donating our old items, but are we just as eager to purchase donated items?
On a holiday so focused on consumption, shift the focus from purchasing something new, to purchasing something new to you.
8. Buy less new decor
Reuse what you have! In order to make reusing our holiday decor fun, we share memories attached to each of the items as we pull them out of the bin. Instead of just having them as pieces of decor they become sentimental items that really bring the joy of Christmas.
Instead of feeling the urge to buy something new, I get excited to pull out our older decorations because they have more meaning and value. We mix and match the items to make our decorations a little different every year.
If you do feel you need to buy new items to supplement what you already have, check secondhand (referenced above) first, then purchase high quality items that will last you for years!
9. Slow down and enjoy
Now, this is an eco-friendly Christmas habit that may be hard, but every family will love it once you get the hang of it – SLOW DOWN!
Christmas is one of the longest holiday seasons we celebrate, it happens so quickly. Just as soon as we are dusting off our old holiday decor and placing the ornaments on the tree, it’s time to put it away and get ready for a new year.
This year, SLOW DOWN. Take your time this holiday and enjoy every moment.
Here are some ideas to help you and your family slow down and enjoy this Christmas:
- Spend time outside and enjoy the chilly weather
- Have a bonfire
- Practice mindfulness
- Share memories with your family and friends
- Unplug from social media more often
- Practice no spend days
- Find quiet time every day during the month of December (even if it is only a few moments)
- Be intentional about showing love and gratitude to your loved ones
Check out these Christmas games and activites you can use this season while you’re enjoying spending time with your friends and family!
I hope you enjoyed this blog post all about eco-friendly Christmas habits every family will love!
What is something your family does every year for Christmas? Are there any new eco-friendly Christmas habits you’ll be doing this year? Share them with me!
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