Gift bags save the Environment

To use something once and throw it away is no longer supported by Mother Earth. You can help repair her spirit by doing your part as the Power of One. Part of my spiritual journey is to share some tried and true strategies.

Trees are the lungs of our planet. The local native elders say the reason we now have more wind in this area is because we are harvesting too many mature trees. I found it interesting in the CBC news article last night on global warming in the north, the people in Nunavut are also now experiencing more winds.

Yikes! 3 months from today it is Christmas Day. For a Taurus who likes to plan methodically, that’s a short timespan. 100% of my Christmas shopping is done throughout the year prior to December. I locate treasures that I believe will bring moments of joy to my family and extended family. Angels ~ I have so many angels in my life and I try to find unique angels to give them each year. Before I retired from my career, I used to make my angel friends their angel gifts. Now that I’m retired, I don’t have as much time to be creative with crafts, etc. Go figure!!

So here’s an alternative for you for Christmas and year round gift giving. It’s my favorite environmental practice that I have been doing since the early 1980’s. Refuse to put any gifts in wrapping paper and refuse to buy cards. I sew, so this is easy for me. I make cloth gift bags for different occasions and crotchet the “ribbon” to close them. Each bag takes about an hour from beginning to end. For people I give to yearly, I have cross-stitched cutsy gift tags that are returned to me every year – again saving paper. For my grandchildren, I cross stitch the year of their first Christmas as well as their name.

I commit to making 10 gift bags a year to give away outside our extended family or tribal circle. Over the years I have influenced more than twenty families to go wrapping paper free so they too are using cloth gift bags. Our tribe collectively must be saving some trees every year as a result.

Now here’s the additional benefit! By having a variety of fabric gift bags on hand of all sizes, it saves time! The tags are all made and attached to the gift bags. So as I acquire treasures for people, I just put them in the gift bags. When it comes time to mail things out – voila – it’s all ready with little fuss. Yup, time efficient too.

Hey men, my 30 year old nephew has now been making his own gift bags by hand for the past 5 years – hand sewing because his wife, his mother and I are so adamant about using gift bags. So no excuses now!