Plastic Free Christmas: A Success!

On Christmas morning, I received a text message from my friend Neal asking, "Did Santa bring you any plastic this year?" With all the holiday excitement I forgot to respond to him, but I should have said: "Yes, Santa brought me some plastic...but not much."

So now you know.

My Plastic Free Christmas wasn't plastic free. My family gave me a few gifts containing plastic, and I gave a few gifts that had some plastic packaging.

Then why was my Plastic Free Christmas a success? Because my family and I tried our hardest to avoid plastic, and we did a darned good job at it. Read on to learn about a few of our plastic free successes, as well as the few gifts that weren't so plastic free.

Plastic Free Gifts

Received

• Two one-gallon glass jars (no plastic coating or seal on lid)
• Wooden cutting board
• Book on home canning
• Book on bread baking
• Gift certificate for a class at the Old Town School of Folk Music
  
• Wooden hair comb
• Owl mug
• Eyeshadow and lip gloss in metal tins
• Burt's Bees rosemary mint shampoo bar
• Dr. Bronner's soap bars
• Lush deodorant bar (my sister hates the way this smells. I'll have to test it and see what I think)
• Sappo Hill soap bars (very yummy smelling!)
• Socks (held together with tiny metal clips)
• Bottle of fancy corked beer from Trader Joe's
• Lindt chocolate bars
• Chocolate chip and molasses cookies (although I just learned that my family ate these while I wasn't there. Curses!)

Given

• Electronic Threadless.com gift certificate (admittedly, this will result require a plastic envelope for shipping the t-shirts)
• Electronic itunes gift certificate
• Outdoor planter
• Books on woodworking
• Issue of Tools and Jigs magazine
• Bulk candy from Whole Foods (wrapped in paper bags and tied with pieces of ribbon)
• Bottle of fancy Italian soda

Gifts with Difficult-to-Avoid Plastic

Received

• Pizza Stone - This was the worst offender because it had Styrofoam to hold it in place within the box, as well as a bag around the metal rack that came with it (sorry to out you, Mom!)
• Bike pump - My new bike pump is made of metal, but a few parts are made of plastic.
• Two one-gallon mason jars - These were shipped in bubble wrap and sealed in plastic.
• Two pairs of socks - These has a plastic binding to hold them together.
• Plastic gift cards to Whole Foods and Starbucks - I told my family it was okay to get me gift cards since ultimately I would get to use them for less "plastickie" stuff.
• Five pairs of nylon undies - I looked it up and I'm still not sure if nylon is technically plastic so I'll list it anyway just in case.

Given

• Four sweaters - Each of these had a plastic binding to hold the tags on.
• A veggie steamer - It was hard to see it, but legs for the steamer were not pre-attached and were wrapped in a little plastic bag inside of it.
• A small bottle Captain Morgan's Rum - My brother-in-law is obsessed with Captain Morgan's rum, and it was a necessity that I buy this for him even though the bottle had a plastic cap.
• T-shirt - I bought a cute t-shirt for my baby nephew online a while back, and forget that it would probably come shipped in plastic. It arrived in a thick plastic envelope.

As you can see, there really wasn't much plastic involved, and I'm proud to say that I had a mostly plastic free Christmas.

To my family: Thank you for all your support with this! It really meant a lot to me!