5) Wrapping and Decorating
In The Sound of Music, Julie Andrews famously sang: "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. / Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. / Brown paper packages tied up with strings. / These are a few of my favorite things." As a cat-loving, gardening, tea-drinking knitter, I must admit that she kind of hit the nail on the head for me. When November was winding down, and I began thinking about how to carry my sustainability trend into holiday decorating and gift wrapping. I associate Christmas decorating with ornaments of sentimental value, either because they're handmade or because they've been lovingly acquired on our travels and bring back delightful memories each year. On the other hand, I associate cleanup after Christmas morning with loading a large plastic garbage bag full of crumpled wrapping paper and stuffing it in the trashcan, an act that pains me every year. 1 A number of tweaks occurred to me, but I decided to feature just two here because they are particularly unique to me and my favorite things.
I love beautiful yarn. I love knitting things from beautiful yarn. If I've done it correctly, I end up with at least a few yards of beautiful yarn leftover after my project is complete. That's not enough to do much of anything with, but I hate throwing away beautiful yarn. As a result, I have a collection of tiny yarn balls from virtually every item of knitwear I've ever made. This year, I am using some of my beautiful yarn ends in place of plastic ribbons and bows and I will braid or crochet chains of it to use to hang ornaments.
I love beautiful calendars, especially ones that feature stunning photography of national parks or foreign castles, but I'm also not immune to cute animal calendars. I'm always sad to see my favorites go at the end of December, and I'm appalled at how many free calendars I have to rehome or recycle. I would need to live in one of those 20-bedroom palaces to be able to use them all! For several years now, I have been cutting out and saving the best pictures from outdated calendars before recycling the rest. This year, I'm finally putting them to use to create upcycled greeting cards and giftwrapping accents. And you know those small-format pictures on the back that preview the larger images on the inside? If you have duplicates, they're perfect for a custom Memory or Go Fish! game.
Brown paper packages tied up with string, indeed!