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Each holiday season (plus birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations in between), wrapping paper is used in astronomical proportions, then—after a brief moment of joyful destruction—it is thrown away. Wrapping paper cannot be recycled, so unless it is reused, it becomes a significant contributor to landfill growth each year.

Though there are those folks who painstakingly remove the paper on their gifts and gently fold it for later use (giving their friends that feeling of déjà vu when they receive gifts from them the next birthday or holiday… ‘Haven’t we seen this paper before?’). Anyone who has tried this reuse trick knows, however, that there is only so much reusing a section of wrapping paper can take. So if you’re looking for an additional way to Reduce, Reuse or Recycle, why not try tossing out paper wrapping for the last time and making reusable cloth gift bags instead? It’s easy, fun and rewarding.

Joyful Anticipation
Just as some families anticipate filling their personal Christmas stockings with presents, cloth gift bags provide an opportunity to create a similar sort of joyful anticipation around birthdays and holidays, without the needless waste that comes with purchasing paper giftwrap. When children (and parents!) see their personal gift bags come out during the holiday season or on the morning of their birthdays, they will be filled with anticipation of the fun to come.

Many families already enjoy making wrapping paper or paper gift bags out of used brown grocery bags, newspaper, magazine pages or used packing paper, but with cloth bags, my family need not worry if we don’t get around to constructing unique wrapping paper in time. We just nestle our items into a homemade cloth bag and know that the gifts we give each other will always be attractively presented.

After the holidays, many craft and fabric stores offer dramatically discounted seasonal prints; with minimal effort such materials can be transformed into a beautiful family tradition. Bag designs can be anything from drawstring to button fastened, and only very basic sewing skills are needed to achieve a functional and attractive bag.

New Sustainable Traditions
Doing projects together that help reduce your carbon footprint is a great way to bond with your loved ones, as well as helping the planet. Making reusable gift bags together can be an opportunity to grow closer as a family. It’s a wonderful opportunity to encourage children to participate in the process of starting new sustainable family traditions. Your kids will be excited when you allow them to pick out the material for the birthday or winter holiday bag that will be used for their annual gift.

Though cloth bags may not have the same crisp look that most folks recognize with delight under the warm glow of holiday lights, children who grow up with cloth holiday bags will begin to recognize them as a symbol of holiday cheer the way their folks recognize paper wrapping.

Other Green Giftwrap Ideas
Of course, cloth bags may not work for every gift-giving situation (you’re probably not going to make one for the birthday party of a kid your child barely knows—or are you? Can you say, “surreptitious green proselytizing”?), but that’s where other forms of reducing and reusing come in handy.

Cut up a brown paper grocery bag and decorate the blank side with markers or rubber stamps; you can buy rubber stamps, or better yet, carve your own from potatoes. Or use the colorful pages of a magazine or the comic section of an old newspaper to wrap presents.

When it comes to giving gifts to loved ones throughout the year, take the opportunity to present them inside a sustainable, reusable wrapping. There are lots of fun and beautiful ways to conceal gifts and create moments of surprise without compromising on your commitment to living a greener life.

Additional resources:
The History and Wastefulness of Wrapping Paper
An Environmental Giftwrap Alternative

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