Every November, without fail, I’m asked for my holiday gift list. Unsatisfied with my protest, “I really don’t need anything,” well-meaning family and friends continue to prod me for ideas. It’s not that I don’t enjoy or appreciate the tradition of giving and receiving this time of year. It’s just that the resulting accumulation of stuff goes against so much of what I stand for.

Similarly, it can be challenging to find a special gift that honors the person you love without compromising your own priorities. Many gift choices only add more disorder to our already cluttered homes, but what can you do? My answer is to request and give disappearing gifts, relieving the burden on the receiver to find space for the gift--while sparing the environment at the same time.

The following lists provide environmentally-friendly, clutter-free gift ideas to suit any budget. Many of these can be homemade to save money while adding a personal touch.

Practical gifts

• Prepaid phone card
• 100% recycled stationery (with postage stamps)
• Calendar (do-it-yourself photo calendars, available through most photo developers, are a perennial favorite for grandparents)
• Beeswax candles
• Gifts in a jar (soup mix, pancake mix, cocoa, etc.), frozen meals or other edibles
• Organic and/or locally crafted (or homemade) bath-and-body products (soap, lotion, etc.)
• Fair trade coffee (add some biscotti for a nice combination)
• Seeds, flower bulbs or birdseed

Gifts of service

• Babysitting
• Yard care
• Cleaning
• Automobile maintenance (oil change, etc.)

Gift certificates (try to avoid gift certificates for merchandise that will ultimately generate more clutter)

• Health club, exercise classes or massage
• Healthy restaurant
• Natural foods and home store
• Local greenhouse or nursery
• Bulb or seed catalog

Annual memberships

• Arboretum or botanical gardens
• State parks, county parks, etc.
• Museum, zoo, conservatory, or historical society

For kids

• Special outing (see “Annual Memberships” above)
• Art materials (paper, paint, scissors, glue, tape, crayons, fabric scraps, ribbon, yarn, chalk, etc.)
• School supplies
• Homemade play dough (see recipe at www.JenniferSwanson.com/recipes.htm)
• Bubbles
• Stocks, bonds, CDs, or contributions to their college education funds

Other ideas

• Coupon book for environmentally friendly products and services (e.g., Blue Sky Guide (Minneapolis/St. Paul), Chinook Book (Portland/Seattle), or Green Zebra (San Francisco))
• Simply in Season cookbook by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert (this gift won’t “disappear,” but it does present delicious, vanishing recipes that make the most of the season’s freshest produce)
• Charitable donation in their honor (e.g., many organizations promote “adopt-a-something” programs; think about causes that would be meaningful to the recipient--then you take the tax deduction!)

My favorite exceptions are heirloom gifts. One all-time favorite gift to our parents was a “day-in-the-life” scrapbook of our daughter, who was 2 years old at the time. Every year since then, we’ve created highly anticipated, personalized photo calendars.

Once you choose a gift, the next step is to decide how to wrap it--or not. In her book Simple Living, José Hobday describes the Native American tradition of giving gifts unwrapped. Rather than allowing paper or a tied-up box to come between the giver and the receiver, a gift is handed over without secrecy. This “flesh-to-flesh connection” provides an enhanced sense of unity.

But if you must wrap, remember the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Reduce waste by wrapping gifts within gifts. Reuse paper, bags, or other containers. Recycle by choosing wrapping materials that won’t end up in a landfill. (Most traditional gift wrap is not recyclable, due to its high metallic and dye content. For more gift wrap ideas, click here.)

Use your creativity to reconsider this holiday season’s gift-giving as well as those other special occasions in the New Year.

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