Sustainable Christmas Ideas & Gifting

Our head of marketing – Sarah Phillipps shares some of her ideas on how to make some small changes to be more sustainable over the festive period:

This time of year can be really stressful and sometimes the excess (everything) can feel like a lot! I try to look for small ways to be more economical where I can and many of them involve upcycling the Raglan Food Co jars.

A couple of my favourite sustainable Christmassy ideas include:

Bouquets of fresh herbs from my garden – they smell delicious and are practical and quirky. I usually pop them in a RFC jar with some twine. My friend Nicola from Mainstream Green was the inspiration for this idea.
I use a lot of my children’s artwork as wrapping paper! We do try to keep and frame the special ones (and these make good gifts too!), but we always find ourselves with a lot of colourful sheets at the end of the school term and I have to say it makes great wrapping paper. I often use the brown paper bags from Countdown too and cover them with doodles or ink drawings. It’s actually very fun!
A few years back I learnt about Furoshiki which are traditional Japanese cloths used to carry belongings and wrap gifts. Although they date back centuries, these square-shaped decorative fabrics make lovely sustainable alternatives to paper gift wrapping. I find all sorts of bits of fabric at Op Shops or hang on to the fabric packaging that duvets and pillowcases come in. This is a good step-by-step guide on the lovely art of wrapping.
I’ve tried making beeswax wraps with mixed success, but they do make lovely gifts, especially housed in our empty yoghurt jars.
When I do buy gifts I try to buy locally made or from shops like Trade Aid or World Vision Smiles Gift
Otherwise, my go-to gift for friends is a jar of homemade granola muesli in an upcycled RFC jar. See below for our family recipe which is easy and very yummy.