Stress Free and Waste Free Holiday Wrapping

About 12 years ago, my mom and I were discussing the hassle and waste of holiday gift wrap. My mom wanted pretty presents under her tree that matched her color scheme, but, she hated the stress of gift wrapping. We also lamented the waste and the difficulty in reusing wrapping paper and finding boxes from year to year. In addition, we were looking for a way to store blown glass Christmas ornaments that I had recently brought from Germany.

Thinking about these issues, I came up with an idea. That year, I took the boxes we had and wrapped the top and bottom separately in silver and white paper to match my mom's Christmas tree. I then attached wired ribbon to the box lids with staples. This way, the box lids could be removed without undoing the gift wrapping. We wrapped our Christmas presents in the boxes and stored our ornaments in them, ready to pull out the next year.


For the last 12 years, we have reused these boxes; adding a few every year. I love to bring them out and see my favorites. Most of my family brings their unwrapped gifts to my parent's home to wrap in our Christmas boxes. Eventually, I added some homemade gift tags I made from reused card stock and gift wrap scraps. Since the family exchanges gifts with each other every year, we can reuse the same gift tags. We attach the tags to the gifts by tapping them to the ribbons. That way, the wrapping paper doesn't get damaged.


Although the Winter Holiday season is not here yet, I thought I would share this idea with enough time to plan your own stress free and waste free Holiday wrapping.