Yes, I know it isn't even Thanksgiving but it is darn close and the amount of planning I think I may need just may be on the larger side of things- especially if I really want to aim for a zero waste holiday season.
First, let me back up a bit and discuss what my family, and others in my local community, have done the past few years that totally fits into Zero Waste ideology, although it came out of another direction.
I am a HUGE fan of the holidays! For those of you who know me better, you know that I love Fall because of the holidays specked throughout it and I love the gathering together of friends, the fun times and memories - and the food of course :-). I adore Christmas- but not the commercialized version our society sells at top dollar every year. It always bugged me- the buying of peoples'/kids' affections through the biggest gift and the incredible amounts of excess being tossed aside and credit being used up for the heat of the moment. I must be a fringe Christian because is has always surprised me that the actual event of Christ's birth was celebrated with companionship, the meeting together of people to celebrate hope and joy... and the gifts are supposed to be a reflection of that joy, but instead it is the main attraction- and at what cost?
People come up with all sorts of excuses- they are pressured to get the right thing for so and so, or they want their kids to have a "nice Christmas" which equates to the possession of a thing... let's all be good children for Santa Clause so we can hit the jackpot and get 'stuff' that media says we absolutely have to have because XYZ. Let me tell ya peeps, I am in marketing. I have been in marketing for over a decade, I know what it is to manufacture desire. To craft it in many different lights, to make your kids beg for something totally useless, that will produce a joy feeling that is fleeting and lasts until the thing breaks or until the next big thing comes along. Christmas in our culture should be named Consumption fest- and would be an aptly renamed holiday fashioned in the likeness of our actual national religion - consumerism and materialism.
A handful of years back my church decided to do something new for Christmas, as a community we all decided to try to spend less, way way way less, on Christmas- in fact, try not to spend any money at all on stuff- but instead make gifts for people or give gifts of time as presents ( like a coffee date, a movie trip, a hike planned, a home made dinner, a fun class....). And then take the money we would spend on stuff and give it all to those in need- our poor, charities in need of support, that neighbor who's roof is busted and he can't afford to fix it. It was a very,very hard transition for us, and definitely a difficult one for my family as I was so used to the long shopping list and checking people off- now I had to actually put effort into it. If I was used to buying 30 gifts, I now had to had to make them or figure some meaningful time gift. It was hard, but way more fun. In fact, my family loved it, and our community shared about how awesome Christmas that year felt and that the gifts were so much more meaningful- and as a community we were able to give like 200K + to build water wells around the world where kids were dying from not having clean water. That was really the best gift for me, to hear about months later what our giving up of purchasing stupid sweaters, gift cards, jewelry, Ipads, plastic kid toys actually did - pooled money together to bless those who really need it.
So for the past 6 years, my family attempts each Christmas season to make almost all our gifts. Having a little one, I will get likely one gift from the store for her, but I have an awesome home made gift in the works for her as well as a cool dance class I plan on taking with her ( don't tell her if you know her :-).
This year, I feel like being apart of this Christmas movement, which has been coined "Advent Conspiracy", goes right in line with Zero Waste. Making things that people can use, or offering our time to do something together, to build up awesome memories.
The hard thing will be the packaging for things. I plan to surf the gobs of goodwills and resale shops for the bits and pieces I need for the items I will be making and the time-gifts I am planning. I have ventured into some craft stores and saw some bulk items that I can purchase so that should keep my plastic packaging down.
Once thing I don't yet will be how I wrap. Most wrapping paper is actually not recyclable ( unless you save and reuse it for wrapping again) because of the waxes and foils used in it. So I will need to research that a bit- and any readers if you have ideas, please share!
I will share my journey here in this blog in the weeks to come about ideas and I discover about how to make the holiday season more zero waste, but in the meantime below are a few links I wish to share.
Here is an awesome list of make your own gifts- and yes, you actually can make gifts for men that are cool too! ( shout out to Kris Collins who sent this link to me): http://www.theidearoom.net/2014/10/diy-gift-ideas.html
For those of you in the Portland metro area, there is a free DIY Christmas fair this Saturday morning ( 11/14/2015 )- I attend it every year. There is stuff for the kiddos to do and tons of booths with awesome make your own gift ideas- and there is free chocolate chip cookies and cocoa! I'll be there right when they open at 10! https://www.facebook.com/events/521098894726807/
Here is a past video about Advent Conspiracy I think rocks: