STOP Doing These Wasteful Holiday Traditions!

STOP doing these wasteful things! These wasteful holiday traditions have GOT to go. Let’s get into it.

What is an anti-haul?

An anto-haul or reverse-haul is to play a little with the trend of doing hauls. Hauls are when influencers buy a ton of stuff and show it all off. This is not that. I’m going to be buying nothing and instead just critique wasteful things. These are things I won’t be buying and encourage you to do the same!

New “Ugly” Sweaters

I love ugly sweaters. But I hate that they have become trendy and almost single-use. The trend started by raiding the thrift store or your grandma’s closet, or making something yourself out of craft supplies. But now it’s mass-produced, brand new “sweaters” that sometimes aren’t even sweaters. It’s a sweater print on a long-sleeved or t-shirt. Or, they’re not even ugly!

I’m not anti-hauling this trend, I just can’t get behind buying a brand new, mass-produced item to wear one time and either throw away or donate…which isn’t much better than the landfill anyway. Shop small, shop secondhand, wear your sweater from the past, borrow a sweater from a friend, or get creative with craft supplies to make your own ugly sweater! We already have enough clothes on the planet to clothe the next few generations. Let’s not create more. Learn more about the truth about fast fashion here.

Wasteful White Elephant

White Elephant can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a LOT of waste. Let’s keep the fun and ditch the waste this year! If you’ve never heard of this holiday activity, everyone brings a wrapped gift, and then you all take turns picking a gift from the pile to see what you get. Usually, it’s gag gifts, which are normally wasteful. I remember one year someone’s was a toilet seat and another was a VCR tape. Could these items be used? In theory, yes. But it’s not that likely. I’m not saying you have to gift someone something brand new and expensive and the most useful thing on the planet, but think before you play this game.

I like to participate by shopping my own home. Is there a candle I can declutter and gift? Can I make some art myself? What about this bag of unopened Christmas candy?

White elephant doesn’t have to be gag gifts, and it doesn’t have to be wasteful. Participate by shopping secondhand or decluttering your own home. Better yet, try to get everyone on board with this to save money and prevent waste.

Buying new decor every year

I’m not saying you have to be stuck with your original decor for your whole life, I’m just saying that throwing it all out and buying brand new stuff every single year is a wild level of overconsumption (learn more about how to break up with overconsumption here). It’s okay to redecorate, I just encourage you to do so responsibly!

When you’re done with your old items, donate them, gift them to a friend, sell them online, or spice them up at home to match your new style. For example, if you have a white tree skirt but you no longer like white, try dyeing it. Or if you have a gold metal star on top of your tree, but that’s no longer your color theme, try spray painting it. This can be a fun holiday DIY to revamp your old decor and not have to buy anything new!

But if you are in the market for some “new” items, try thrifting this year. Just like with clothing, as we discussed earlier, there is generally enough stuff on the planet to last us several lifetimes. We do not need to create more stuff. I can almost guarantee you will find precisely what you’re looking for secondhand. Give it a try!

Fake snow???

That’s right, you can BUY snow. Capitalism is bottling up white spray and selling you a thing that occurs naturally. Granted, this stuff lasts longer and can make it feel like you have snow in warm climates. But it’s toxic and wasteful!

There are a few versions from plastic fluff to hang on your tree to spray snow that you can add to trees and windows. It’s all wasteful.

I know, I may just sound like the Grinch and that I’m taking away your winter fun, but create a less wasteful winter wonderland in your home without this stuff that is non-recyclable and will just render your tree non-compostable! Make paper snowflakes, use reusable garland and decorations, paint your own winter wonderland wall hanging, and so forth. I get it, I grew up with snow and now I live somewhere without it and Christmas does feel weird without it. But that’s not an excuse to be wasteful!

Obligatory gifts

This just in: you don’t have to buy a gift for everyone! I see a lot of discourse around people looking for gift ideas for parents and friends and partners and coworkers and teachers and cousins and so on and so forth. You don’t HAVE to buy gifts for every single person in your life! Of course, if you want to, I’m not here to stop you. But if it’s last minute and you had no plan to buy this person a gift until now, what you may end up buying for them will likely be wasted.

Gifts should be thoughtful and meaningful and not some dollar store junk you got because you felt obligated to gift someone something. You should give someone something that reminded you of them, that they would truly want or use, and intentional!

It can be hard, but have the “no gift” discussion within your circles. It’s so much more meaningful to spend time with one another instead of wasting time, energy, and money into gifts that will just end up in the landfill.

Advent calendars

I think advent calendars can be a lot of fun but also a lot of waste! The premade ones are comprised of a ton of packaging and they’re mysteries. This is fun, of course, but also wasteful since you may not use everything that’s included in them.

If advent calendars aren’t normally your thing, cool, the answer is to just ditch them entirely this year! But if they’re a big tradition for you and your family, try a homemade one this year. You can stock it with gift cards, favorite candies, experience gifts, and things of that nature to make it less wasteful and totally customized to the recipient so that they use everything they get.

As I’m sure you’re catching on with by now, I’m not saying any of this has to go entirely. I’m just encouraging everyone to partake in these trends in meaningful and less wasteful ways!

Black Friday sales

At least, I refuse to partake in impulse purchasing during Black Friday. I totally see the ability to use BF as a means to get stuff that you normally can’t afford. Maybe this is your time of year where you stock up on otherwise expensive shampoo bars and recycled toilet paper and things like that. That’s totally fine. These are clearly purchases you have thought about and will use/need!

What I am against here is impulse buying things you do NOT need. Going to the mall or Target or Amazon and browsing and filling your cart with things you will not use or don’t need and that you did not think about before purchasing.

I also hate what capitalism has done with this. Back in the day, BF was literally a day, or even a few hours during that day, of sales. Now it’s all weekend and it’s online and in person. Not only this, but many big brands have proven to raise prices during October and early November and then “lower” prices to the original price for BF. You’re not always getting a sale price. You may be getting the original price that appears to be lower to what you saw in the weeks leading up to the sale. Watch out for this and save your money and the planet in the process!

Decorating on public lands

PLEASEEEE stop decorating outside. It’s one thing to decorate the exterior of your own home and make sure it’s 100% cleaned up when you’re done. But it’s another thing to head to a state or national park and litter. Yes, it’s littering to put ornaments on a tree while you hike. It is plastic, after all!

Save it for home. Decorate a tree at home, add tinsel to your own trees, etc. And I still do encourage you to keep any plastic decorations inside as they can break down and become microplastics and even large pieces of litter outside. Decorate outside, instead, with natural decor like pinecones, popcorn, fruit, sticks, and things like that!

Thanks so much for reading along. I hope this inspires you to have a less wasteful Christmas season. What are you anti-hauling?

As always, remember that your small actions make a big difference in the long run :)

Emma