Recycled Paper by acd111
From my earliest days, I remember this practice of a Christmas morning.
We would never rip into presents in gleeful abandon (not having any siblings probably helped with this), but carefully unwrap them, sliding a finger under each piece of sticky-tape and almost reverentially separating it from the paper. Wincing, if it started to tear, and our aim to upwrap a near-pristine piece of paper looked like coming unravelled!
My mother always carefully collected Christmas and birthday wrapping paper to re-use at a future date. I’m not sure whether she inherited the process from her mother, but it is an unshakable part of my being to this day. Throughout my childhood, whenever a friend had a birthday, I would buy their present, then venture into the hall cupboard, where mum kept the stash of wrapping paper – carefully folded in an old paper bag. I would pull it out, and sort through the pieces until just the right one for this particular present presented itself!
I still, at 27 years old, follow this careful ritual when unwrapping a present. I have now begun my own collection of old wrapping paper, to be re-used when the perfect combination of present and paper occurs.
In fact, a little bit of me still winces in horror when I see other people gleefully ripping their giftwrap to shreds. That little voice in my head cries ‘what a waste’ – and it is! CopperWiki suggests that we throw away an estimated 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper each year! Now, I try and do my bit to live a sustainable life, and this is just one more little way I try to both save the environment, and save money, too.
The funny thing is, I never had to make this decision. It was made for me during all of those Christmases and birthdays where I would, under the loving gaze of my mum and dad, carefully unwrap every gift with care, and peek my way, bit by bit, into the mystery of the present beneath.
So – what do you do? Are you one of the wrapping-paper-collecting hordes, or do you end up with a great big garbage bag of paper each Christmas?
***
Want more Epheriell-y goodness? Subscribe to my blog updates, or sign up for my newsletter!
I’m a paper hoarder I’m afraid, I use it for re-wrapping smaller things and for card making and a hundred other little crafty things 🙂
I even horde things like Quality Street Wrappers, the clear cellophane type to use for crafty purposes!
MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR xx
What a wonderful tradition to have:) My hubby and I stopped giving each other presents a long time ago, we just give each other cards. We figured we could give the money to someone needy:) Merry Christmas!
I’ve never been a shredder, but was never specifically careful either. These days we save and reuse absolutely everything though. My husband is a tried and true careful opener of gifts. Comes in handy…all those papers and bags.
Merry Christmas!
Kala – that is a thoughtful thing to do! It does get to that point when you wonder what to get someone who pretty much has everything they want and need.
I reuse my wrapping paper, tissue, cardboard boxes to make reusable gift boxes! I hate throwing away all that paper on just one use. I use ripped, shredded, whatever, decoupage it, curl it, however, to make something uniquely re-giftable.
***wandered in from ETSY***
In my family we saved boxes and gift bags and tissue paper. My Gramma saved wrapping paper, but that didn’t seem to catch on with my family. I recently saw a blog post about Green Holidays and saving wrapping things. I didn’t realize that not everyone saves boxes and bags etc. I can not imagine throwing them away!! Maybe we’ll try to add the paper to our saving of things in years to come. Love your post.
Great ideas! I always feel so bad throwing all that wrapping paper away.
Awesome! My mil saves paper. I’m not quite there. I do save ribbon and such, but not so good with the paper.
Merry Christmas!
It must be a mom thing; my mom saves wrapping paper, too! She hasn’t rubbed off on me completely, but I do try to recycle as much as possible. Sometimes, though, you just HAVE TO tear that box of chocos open 😉
That is a great idea. I should do that, but I love ripping paper open when opening presents (I’m not a very careful opener). Journaling and making cards and journals has taught me to save scrap paper though so I usually save scrap wrapping paper to use in my personal journal/artwork or cards.
It’s wonderful to hear from all those other paper-savers out there! Thanks all, for your comments 🙂
We also save wrapping paper in our family. We used to fight over who would get to iron the tape off the paper every year. Every year Mum would rotate who would get their present wrapped in the paper off the first present Dad gave her when they were courting. Its at least 50 year ols and while not going strong is hanging in there.
Wow! That’s so sweet 🙂