Christmas Is a Wrap

There are only a couple of days until the Winter Solstice and just a few days until the holidays. Or, as we still say in Ireland and the U.K., the " festive season" (otherwise known as plain old Christmas and New Year). I still say to myself every year: This is gonna be the year when I buy all presents early and get them wrapped and ready, but again I have not done it. I do love wrapping presents; such good fun with a warm mulled wine and mince pie. But it’s usually in the very last possible hour and therefore the wrap becomes a crazed panicked moment of paper fury.

This year, I am pleased that I have remembered everything and will indeed get those crucial items over the weekend and get wrapping, too. This whole process doesn’t have to be so crazy. With a little forethought now, you can prep yourself for next year and save a tree while you’re at it.

When I was growing up, I had to recycle all our Christmas wrapping. My dad taught us how to carefully remove and reuse the bows that stick to the top of presents. Our family kept a Christmas wrapping bag, which had many reused bows every year. He also tried to make us reuse paper, which only really worked if something large had been wrapped so you could remove the tape and paper carefully and see no tears or folds on the next package.

Over the last few weeks, I have read about many new ideas for having greener wrapping and less waste over Christmas. Some have been complete turkey like using holiday catalogues as wrapping paper. Who wants to give or receive a present with adverts and goods on it? Others are far better and more like my father’s way of doing things, such as using old tissue paper or other paper like nicer bags from large department stores. You can cover the logos with a bow or a nice placement of ribbon.

Another idea I have seen is to use energy efficient bulbs in place of a bow — a very good idea and it encourages loved ones to cut emissions. Besides recycling paper and items from around your house to use as wrapping, there are some great websites available where you can buy other kinds of recycled paper. There’s one style that uses flower seeds as decoration on the paper. When you’re done shredding it off your gift, you can plant the paper in your yard and grow some flowers. Now that is a present within itself!

Another idea: buy one of our T-shirts and use it to wrap a present. By doing so you’ll be giving two gifts, one for your friend and another that gives hope to someone in another part of the world. That's the real Christmas spirit, and it's a wrap for me.