By Vivian Davidson

The holidays are often a season filled with gift-giving and consumerism and our wallets, the environment and emotional wellbeing take a huge hit. This does not need to be the case.  I and my family have long espoused the spirit of the holidays over the consumerist ethos that has overtaken what is supposed be festive occasions.  As such I have developed very sustainable practices when thinking about what and how I give.  Below are some examples that I hope will help you in your ethical gift giving journey. After all there is no reason not to spread joy and love whilst conserving our environment, sanity and creating beautiful memories and experiences.  

For starters, whatever physical gifts I give I prioritize local and sustainable.  I research companies in Vancouver that are committed to sustainable materials and processes so I forgo the ubiquitous big-name online shopping companies that mostly do not provide these choices. 

I will then wrap said gifts in things like newspaper or cool ads/pages from magazines that might be colourful to add some art to the wrapping.  Also, I tend to prefer what I have called “moments over tokens” which is to give experience-based items over ‘stuff’; for example, buying tickets for art events like theatre shows or art exhibits or a festival especially now to support local shops and the Arts and artists as much as possible. So, focusing on experiences rather than items. On that vein, I also like to get gift cards to local restaurants to support local businesses which again, is even more meaningful now.

I also like to find out people’s spirit animal or a favourite animal or flower or tree and sketch that for them along with a poem or short write-up about them and my relationship with them and what I treasure about knowing them.

Something not many people do which I highly encourage they do, is to give themselves a treat; some people call it a ‘guilty pleasure’ yet I like to call it ‘self care’, something we tend to overlook in our hyped and busy lives. So, for my ‘self care’ treat I like to gift myself a massage or anything body care related as during the year I really ask a lot of my body and giving back to it is something I never regret.

So, hopefully I have given you some inspiration and a way to give to others, to yourself and to mother Nature this holiday season and well, hopefully throughout the year as well. Stay calm, safe and happy everyone.

What are your zero waste tips?

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