It's a Wrap!

I just saw these amazing women online that could wrap up a snowboard as origami. And they were gorgeous. But they did use lots of paper and tape to make these creations. I know that there is a buzz about Christmas being more green this year and I thought that I'd give you some ideas from my thrifty, oops, I mean green family.

1. Fabric Gift Bags. They gave these away about 20 years ago at the local Turbo gas station and they are usually grabbed by the men of our family on Christmas Eve. Still as nice as the day we got them with a 30L fill.
2. Paper Gift Bags. Now, these can die after a certain amount of time... usually years though. The key is to get one ugly one in the batch that people know comes from you and people dread having it be for them. Who knows, it might be a good place to put the most anticipated gift.
3. Garbage Bags. For largish, awkward gifts this is pure gold! (Eat your hearts out snowboard wrappers....) Tie it up with ribbon and then when the person unwraps it, you have the garbage bag there for the unrecyclables to clean up.
4. Wrapped Boxes. Now this takes a bit of time the first year but it will come back to help you out year after year. Wrap the top and bottom of the box separately and place the gift in there. Voila! You've got the perfect box for years to come. If you're really desperate, do it in a festive but not Christmas specific colour and you can use it for birthdays.
5. Saving things. I agree that boxes, large pieces of ribbon etc. should be saved.... be green! However, if you try to get your kids to stop ripping through the wrapped presents to carefully save the wrapping paper, you might be taking it too far.
6. Moment of amnesia presenting. Or you can wait until all the gifts are opened up and then pretend that you forgot about something in your room and bring out the unwrapped presents in the bags from the store they were purchased at. I have to warn you, that if you take it this far, you won't be too popular. That is just taking the green thing a little too far.

Wrapping presents is not meant to be stressful. Now go and find those gift bags!