Plastic is everywhere…so it isn’t hard to spot in our holiday preparations.

For example – if we buy holiday desserts at the grocery store, they are likely to be in plastic clamshells which are not generally recycled even though most of the manufactures try to say that they are. My curbside recycling company does not accept them and the city recycling center doesn’t either. They are plastic that touches food (not good) …and they go immediately into the trash since there are very few ways to reuse them. The only way to avoid them it to make your goodies from basic ingredients (no weird additives) that come in less toxic packaging.

My sister made homemade goodies for the family and the staff at my dad’s memory care facility this year. The party mix (a tradition in our family for decades) is in Ziplocs so some plastic…but all the other things are contained in tins that are reused. The version she gave me had the party mix in a tin of its own so mine had no plastic.

I selected some boxes of tea bags to give to my sister (paper/cardboard packaging) and reused a bag I had from a soap shop….hiding the logo and covering the top with Christmas cards!

Later I tried wrapping a present with no tape…and wasn’t quite successful (I had to add 2 pieces of tape). I used cotton crochet thread to tie around the package. So – not plastic-free but less plastic than I would have used previously.

It’s hard to avoid plastic but it occurs to me that at least some of the time there are benefits to thinking about it beyond reducing plastic in the environment – reduced cost by reusing something I already have, healthier treats with known ingredients, and more thoughtful presents!

I bought several of the MODGY Expandable Flower Vase back in October when I toured the Museum London (in London, Ontario). They are great gifts because they are flat and light (easy to wrap/ship) – made of heavy, reusable plastic that expands when it is filled with water. What a clever idea! Last week I finally picked the one I would keep – the Louis Comfort Tiffany Field of Lilies vase. When filled with water, it was stable on the windowsill; adding the bouquet was very easy and the cinching at the top makes it easy to position the flowers!