Judith Proctor's Journal

We'd agreed as a family on an environmentally-friendly Xmas - which is pretty easy as most of our family already lean that way - second-hand books have been welcome gifts for many years (half the price, twice as many books - it's a no-brainer).

This year, we took it a step further.  The vast majority of gifts were either second-hand, donations to charity, environmentally friendly, hand-made, or board games (being made of cardboard, they have a very low environmental impact - which is fortunate given how much we play them...) 

Second hand lego, second hand lava lamp, hand made gifts - my sister Gillian made a hat and scarf for Oswin with second hand yarn from a charity shop, and Oswin loved it.   Might have been the great purple colour, or maybe the knitted butterfly on the end!

I made a dice bag for my son's fiancee using only materials I already had and she was delighted with it - making it yourself means you can personalise to an amazing extent - find me a commercial dice bag with a brightly-coloured diplodocus and a degu on it!



Here's the degu - they're a kind of rodent.

and the diplodocus - I'm afraid photography is not one of my skills...



All the wrapping paper was re-used stuff from last year (and much of it will be used again next year).  Where wrapping paper wasn't available, pillow cases make good wrappers for gifts. (second hand scarves also work well).

Once you get your head round the fact that you don't need to measure love/affection by the amount of money you spend, you will understand why no one spent a large sum on Oswin's gifts and yet, she was delighted with all of them.   A 'Saving Dory' scooter from a charity shop was seized with cries of delight, a cheap bow and arrow (bought on a market stall in the summer before I decided to go totally second hand) provided much fun for Oswin, and her mum, and her uncle!  Second hand children's books are ridiculously cheap, so she got several excellent ones.

I don't think any of her close family spent more than a tenner on her. Was she happy? Definitely! 

Her other grandmother appears to define her purpose in life as drowning Oswin in as many toys as possible, but when Oswin is playing at our house, she frequently chooses to use no toys at all, or to adapt random items to her purpose.   Last week, she re-enacted the school nativity play using majhong tile racks to form a stage, a large quantity of dice (we're gamers, we have LOTS of dice) as the children, and a group of clockwork dinosaurs as the parents.  Today, she spent a happy hour or so with a small tub of PlayDoh her uncle gave her last Xmas - the first thing she made was a replica of the quiver that her bow and arrows came with (using the cylinder, that some cocktail sticks came in, as a mould to roll her slab round).

My son's fiancee is vegan, so we went for a vegan Xmas lunch which was enjoyed by all (apart from me as I was unwell, and simply not hungry).  We did have an option of a meat pate starter for those who didn't want to go totally vegan, but only a few opted for it.  The deserts were a mixture of vegan and veggie (ie. contained cream or cheese).  The sticky toffee pear pudding was gorgeous (I tried a bit on Boxing Day when I was up to nibbling stuff).

 You know how after Xmas you normally have this great big pile of rubbish?

We didn't.  There's some cardboard from delivery boxes for board games, but that's all recyclable.  That's when I realised just how much packaging new presents come in.

We had a really enjoyable day, with a fraction of the environmental footprint that generally goes with Xmas.  It doesn't have to cost the Earth, either financially or literally.