every year i make a big deal about saving the wrapping paper and reusing it. and then christmas comes again and i loathe, LOATHE, dragging out that bin of crumply old paper. we seldom seem to use any of what i’ve saved.

so this year, and future years, i’m finding ways around it. we’re reusing materials and re-purposing. we’re not going to wrap any of the presents for the nuclear family. it’s all just going to be sitting out on display on christmas morning just like the good old days. here’s some of what we’ve come up with for this year:

our main sources have been old nautical charts courtesy of salty sailor mike, discarded darla masterpieces and brown paper prettified by my snowflake obsession. they’re everywhere!!!

i was trying to steal this idea from lovely things but i decided to use my snowflakes instead of doilies because we have about 500 coffee filters still to be used. if it doesn’t snow here christmas morning maybe i’ll just throw them all on the front yard.

i like reusable boxes and bags for christmas but i tried to maximize it up by decorating sturdy boxes in non-specific wrapping. that way they can be used for multiple holidays. does your family sit around on christmas morning and talk about what was put in what same box 20 years ago? mine does. smile.

getting d involved with coloring her own wrapping paper is one of the ideas we need to amp up next year. she wants to be in the center “helping” with everything and this satisfied her slightly. we are tearing off long strips of paper every third day anyway so might as well put it to another use before pitching. yeah, i just admitted to throwing away my child’s art. ya can’t keep it all.

we were all set on boxes, stuffers and tissue paper due to the amount of shopping i did online. for an extra pop of color i tore out pages from old magazines and added them to the stuffing. it feels good to know that we’re only wrapping half as many gifts this year and practically all of our materials are reused or recycled.

next year i’m campaigning for all family members to have an individual basket with their name on it and everyone will just come in and place the unwrapped gifts in respective baskets. think about it….

i will give you all the gift of time. time not spent wrapping gifts.