Olivia for the Ocean

The holidays are in full swing and I couldn’t be more excited. I love this time of year. The lights, the Christmas music, gathering with friends, and all the wonderful food!

Before I had kids, I used to do a lot of Christmas shopping. As the oldest in my generation, I’d get gifts for my younger brother, all my younger cousins, as well as parents, grandparents, close friends, and co-workers.

I accomplished nearly all my shopping either at the outlets or on Amazon. But over time the number of gifts I purchased decreased. As my friends and I have gotten older, we’ve stopped exchanging gifts and instead choose to enjoy a good meal together. With all my cousins we have a White Elephant Gift Exchange instead of buying individual gifts for each person.

But Olivia, this is a gift guide.

Don’t worry, I still have wonderful suggestions for you, but consider, these options to save time and money. The idea of a gift is to show someone that you love and appreciate them. That can easily be done with a good meal or spending some quality time with that person.

Instead of ten people buying nine gifts to exchange with everyone, with a White Elephant Gift Exchange, each person only needs to purchase one gift. And the game is so much more fun than simply exchanging gifts!

Less gifts to buy so you can get back to enjoying the holidays with those you love–that’s what the season is really about, right?

So, after you’ve narrowed down your list to a few gifts, here are my tips for plastic-free gift giving:

• Experiences
• Consumables
• Package Free

I also have gift suggestions for kids, eco-friendly friends, and share a few of my favorite things–Oprah style!

Experiences

As a minimalist who hates clutter, I love experiences as a gift. You can either enjoy the experience with the person you’re giving the gift to, or simply give the experience as a gift that they can share with someone else. Some great experience gifts include:

Tickets to a:

• concert
• movie
• theater
• ballet
• museum
• zoo
• aquarium
• sporting event

Gift certificates for:

• dinner
• massage
• dance lessons
• martial arts class
• cooking class

You can get a number of these kinds of tickets at Costco at a discounted rate. For example, you can buy a $100 gift card to a restaurant for $80. Many of the ticket and restaurant gift card options are paper but I would check to see first before purchasing them if you want to avoid the plastic gift card.

Consumables

Consumables, or basically anything that gets used up, are great because, again, they don’t add to clutter. To me, clutter is the opposite of holiday cheer.

Examples of consumable gifts:

• wine and other alcohol
• gourmet olive oils
• soy candles
• bath bombs

Package Free

One of the best ways to avoid plastic is to purchase something that has no extra packaging. Some great ideas for package-free gifts are:

• books
• journals
• artwork
• jewelry
• warm weather accessories

Eco-Gifts

For your eco-friendly friends, or those with a New Year’s resolution to be more eco-friendly, gifts that replace single-use plastics are a great start.

Reusable Coffee Cup

I bought this reusable coffee cup for my husband last year and he uses it nearly every day. It’s insulated and can be used for hot or cold drinks. There are two different lids depending on the type of drink.

Beeswax Wraps

As I mentioned in a Simple Guide to Plastic-Free Grocery Shopping, I use beeswax wraps to bring home cheese from the deli and store it in the fridge. This beeswax wrap lunch kit is a perfect replacement for plastic sandwich baggies.

Bento Box

I love these metal Bento boxes for packing snacks for my kids on the go. It gives my kids a selection and it’s portioned just right.

Silicone Snack Bag

Stasher bags are another great option to replace plastic baggies and they come in all different colors and sizes.

Metal Straw

As the leader of the Green Team in my office I’m always ordering eco-friendly raffle prizes and giveaways. The metal straws are always the biggest hit. Here’s a metal straw set with its own carrying case!

Metal Boba Straw

I love Boba. So, I was so excited to see these metal Boba straws on Amazon. While I personally don’t use regular drinking straws, it’s difficult to drink Boba without a straw so I have two of these. They also double as a smoothie straw!

Shoes

Finally, I’m a big fan of Rothy’s. My husband got me a pair of the flats for Christmas a few years ago and I’ve been hooked ever since.

They are super comfortable, and you can toss them in the washer! Also, the eco-activist/nerd in me loves that they are 3D-knitted from recycled plastic water bottles!

Gifts for Kids

It feels like nearly every item in the toy aisle is made of plastic. Whether the bright rigid stuff we’re used to being called “plastic” or the soft and fluffy stuffed animal made from polyester which is still essentially plastic.

The best ways to get plastic-free gifts for kids are to start with some of the things we’ve already talked about.

Consider experience gifts geared towards kids like movie tickets, tickets to theme parks or discovery museums. Is the child an avid reader? Costco has a great selection of interesting books for kids.

If all the previous selections aren’t the right fit, the next step would be to buy items that are made to last and made of materials like wood and metal.

Melissa & Doug and Hape both have a large selection of wooden toys for kids of all ages and can be found at big box stores as well as health food stores like Sprouts and Whole Foods. Here are some examples:

Xylophone Block

Trucks

Marble Maze

Dollhouse

Metal Cars

Oftentimes the main street of a small town will have a boutique toy shop that has higher quality toys that are made to last. You’re more likely to find toys made of wood or metal, like these die-cast metal cars, in these shops.

Tiara

My daughter loves playing dress up and while she’s accumulated many plastic crowns and tiaras from birthday parties and gifts, her favorite one is this metal and rhinestone tiara I bought her for her birthday.

It was less than $10, came in a cute box with no plastic. Awesome, awesome, awesome!

A Few of My Favorite Things

Don’t worry, I’m not going to start belting out songs from the Sound of Music. But I am going to get my Oprah on for a few minutes and share some of my favorite things.

I don’t have Oprah’s fancy production budget, so this picture will have to do. 🙂

Travel Jewelry Case

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a minimalist and an engineer. And those two things combined make me LOVE efficiency. So, I like to travel (and live) as lightly as possible.

While I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, I have a few staple pieces I wear and travel with. So, this travel jewelry case was the perfect size to neatly carry my accessories while traveling! The only plastic was a tiny sleeve that contained a cleaning cloth.

E-Reader

I read A LOT of books. Last year I made a goal of reading a book a week and being the over-achieving Asian I am, I read 68 books!

My kindle is used every day. I love that I can fit my entire library in the palm of my hands, and I like that the screen looks like paper. My eyes don’t get fatigued like on a regular screen. I have the 8th generation but there are many options available.

Coffeemaker

My husband bought a Chemex Coffeemaker a few years ago and we love it. It’s an easy plastic-free way to make coffee in the morning and the design is beautiful! You can use Chemex paper filters or a reusable stainless steel filter.

Pasta Machine

I mentioned in Plastic-Free Pasta that I started making pasta last month. This pasta machine has been the best kitchen item I’ve bought in years! Fresh pasta is so delicious, and this makes it easy! Check out the recipe here.

Fleece Jacket

I wear my Patagonia Fleece Jacket nearly every weekday in the office. It’s lightweight and warm. I find that zippered pockets are very handy (so your keys or other fun items don’t fall out when you’re running after your kids or dog). The zippered pocket on the arm is perfect for your phone.

Also, I’m a fan of everything Patagonia stands for. Patagonia works tirelessly to ensure their supply chain is as eco-friendly as possible and they provide grants to non-profits, like the Surfrider Foundation, who help protect the Earth.

Legwarmers

As a dancer, I love legwarmers! Oftentimes if I’m wearing leggings and it’s cold outside, I’ll throw on a pair of legwarmers over my leggings. They’re also popular to wear with tall boots.

Where possible choose a cotton legwarmers since synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester are essentially plastic. All clothes shed microfibers when washed, so we want to prevent tiny plastic fibers from synthetic materials from washing into our oceans.

Lip Balm Metal Tins

Metal lip balm tins are a great stocking stuffer and this one smells like strawberry heaven. You can find them at Sephora.

Wrapping

Instead of purchasing wrapping paper, consider some alternative papers to wrap your gift in:

• unraveled paper bags
• newspaper
• old map
• printer paper

My close friends always knew which gifts I brought to a white elephant gift exchange because it was always wrapped in newspaper.

Or purchase a holiday themed metal tin to put your gift in. Oftentimes these are meant for holiday cookies, but this is a cute and easy option for gift wrap. You can find these in the holiday section of a grocery store, drug store, or big box store.

Now that you have a few ideas, are you ready to find some plastic-free gifts? Let me know your creative ideas for gift giving or wrapping in the comments!

For related posts, check out:

• The Perfect Plastic-Free Hostess Gift
• Plastic-Free Birthday Parties for Kids