Welcome to the November 2013 Carnival of Natural Mothering!

This post is part of the Carnival of Natural Mothering hosted by GrowingSlower, Every Breath I Take, I Thought I Knew Mama, African Babies Don’t Cry, and Adventures of Captain Destructo. Our topic this month is Incorporating Natural Into the Holidays. Be sure to check out all of the participants’ posts through the links at the bottom of the page!

Does “Natural” Go Out the Window for You During the Holidays?

Perhaps you try to be more natural during the year, but then the holidays roll around and, well…it just all falls apart.  It’s definitely okay to cut yourself some slack!  Every little bit helps, and if your little bit is an even littler bit for a few weeks out of the year, that’s all right.  But there are some things you can do to encourage “natural” during this season!

1. Tweak favorite family recipes.  We’ve adapted a number of our recipes over the years to use whole grains and less sugar.  You don’t have to do it all at once, either, if you don’t want to.  Try just substituting one ingredient at a time, and after a few years, you’ll have a completely upgraded recipe!
2. Use a real tree.  There has been a lot of debate, but when it comes down to it, a natural tree is better for the environment (and, I would imagine, our health!) than an artificial one.  However, if you already have an artificial one, it’s more eco-friendly to keep using it for as long as you can.  We had ours for thirteen years, I think, before it finally fell apart – and the deal was that I got to have a real tree once it bit the dust!  (Of course, not having one at all would be another alternative, but that’s just not legitimately an option for most families.)
3. Give natural gifts.  This is a great opportunity to frequent small businesses, local shops, etc., and/or to look for natural materials as you buy or create gifts.
4. Give gifts that encourage natural living.  Another gift option is tools to help the recipient live more naturally: cloth napkins, reusable straws, lunch bags, etc.
5. Use upcycled or reusable wrapping.

Reusable and Upcycled Wrapping Options

Reusable shopping bags are common as gift bags around here.  You can usually pick them up for just a dollar or so at your local stores, they hold lots of stuff, and don’t need to be thrown away when Christmas is over.  They might even encourage their recipients to use less paper and plastic during the upcoming year!

Cool boxes enter our home throughout the year in a variety of ways.  A product may be packaged in an interesting box or other container, for example.  Or something may be shipped in a great box.  I set these aside to use when wrapping Christmas gifts.

Save your gift wrap and use it again.  We don’t save a lot of regular wrapping paper, because it tends to get torn up, but we save gift bags, tissue paper, and ribbon.  There was even something of a challenge going on in my husband’s family for a while, where the same shirt box was being passed around every year, reused in an intentional, obvious manner.  (“Who has THE box this year?”)

Use packaging.  This is one of my favorites.  We get packages all year long that are shipped with brown packing paper.  I smooth it out, save it in a stack, and use it as gift wrap.  (That’s what you see in my photo above.)  I really like the look of brown paper, and has a natural aesthetic, so that’s an added bonus, for me.

Consider alternative sources.  Do you need gift basket filler?  Why not run some scrap paper through your paper shredder?  (This can be really colorful if you select your paper well.)  Will one of your paper grocery bags serve the function?  Or the “funny pages” of the newspaper?  If it’s a (physically) small gift, your child’s artwork might even be big enough to serve as gift wrap!

A Bonus Tip

One final bonus tip for you: go used.  Not everyone will have this option (or you might have to employ it with only a select subset of your gift list), because some people consider it tacky.  However, if your circle of family/friends is open to it, buying gifts – or elements of gifts – used can be a very eco-friendly option!  (If your children are small, this is a good mindset to encourage in them!)  In our family, frugal and eco-friendly gifts are appreciated, and nobody cares if an item is bran-new or not.

In fact, “And guess what?!  It only cost me 25 cents!” is the kind of thing that’s been heard during gift-opening time!  You might think that would be offensive, but the response was, “Really?!  That’s awesome!”   The point is, we have nurtured a culture within our family where the hunt to find something the recipient will really love is the heart of things, and the cost or source of the item is largely irrelevant.  If you can get there, that’s a great benefit, because it obviously uses fewer resources to continue using something that already exists than to make more new stuff, so used is better for the planet.

As an added benefit, the vast majority of the more natural Christmas options are also easier on your pocketbook!

This post is being shared at Teach-Me Tuesday, Tuesday Greens, Titus 2 Tuesday, Trash 2 Treasure Tuesday, Wildcrafting Wednesday, Waste Not Want Not Wednesday, Penny Pinching Party, Natural Living Link-Up, Green Living Thursdays, Thriving on Thursdays, Thank Your Body Thursdays, Small Footprint Fridays.