Green Christmas: 10 Awesome Gifts that Don't Take Up Any Room Under the Tree

Oh who doesn't love the look of a Christmas tree just bursting with gifts underneath? It feels good to see that symbol of abundance and that physical manifestation of love on Christmas morning. I know I really love a good Gift Mountain. I do. Not facetious at all, it makes me so happy to give gifts.

That being said, how many of the gifts you received last year can you name? And how many gifts get returned or never quite find use in the course of the year? Probably at least a few! We give so many gifts this time of year, but if you are looking to get the most for the biggest deal, you are doing harm. Americans have so much stuff, and we are creating tons of waste. 85 million tons of textile waste. Plastic that is overrunning the ocean. Encouraging inequality and the mistreatment of other. If Jesus came to save the world, why are we celebrating him by destroying it?

I would never knock gift-giving as a practice, but I do think there are lots of gifts we could be giving that don't take up more room in our homes and under our tree. Giving gifts that don't take up space can sometimes be the best ones, and they can help us take care of what we already have rather than adding to piles that can become hard to manage. These gifts might not fill up the tree space as much, but I think they are gifts that your loved ones will be so much more likely to remember.

What non-material gifts are you giving this year? I am excited to be buying our niece piano lessons with a few books. All of our siblings are getting experiences instead of stuff. It's a trend I am excited about, even if we don't have the big gift-opening moment on Christmas morning. That's two minutes. I want to get gift that make memories that will last.


So here are my best ideas- what are you getting this year that you don't have to wrap

1. Netflix Subscriptions- Rather than buying someone a stack of movies this Christmas, what about getting them the fancy dvd level membership to Netflix? Even pay for their streaming for them! It is a little steep, maybe their whole gift for the year, but it creates a lot less waste to borrow than to own!

2. Quality Time- Rather than getting a family or couple more stuff, look up an event calendar for their town and think about if you could get them tickets to a cool activity they would enjoy. For example (and sorry, Shell, I didn't go for it and I should have), I saw tickets for sale to go see/ ride on Thomas the Tank Engine that would have been so fun for my sweet cousin's toddlers and their whole family. If you can fund a new experience or a family memory, that can make a great gift!

For the Bub's birthday, we bought him one gift. One. Instead, we took him to see Daniel Tiger Live as a family, and he was so into it! My goal is to manage birthdays this way forever- one gift, one experience, and one party. I love the memory of going there with him, and it won't add to the collection of toys we seem to always be fighting back.

If you don't have kids to shop for, this still works. Try concert tickets or season tickets to something. Give a gift card for a trip you know they are saving for.

3. Handy Help- Taking a page from Luke on Gilmore Girls, you could give "coupons" for help getting something checked off a loved one's to do list. Not handy yourself? You could try buying your loved one a few hours of handyman or cleaning person time. I have given this gift, and not to toot my own horn (toot toot), but I think it is basically the best gift ever. Let's face it, adulthood is the worst, and it gets so old to have a neverending to do list for your home. Blech.

You can get a loved one a little help fixing that vent or ceiling, or hanging that molding, or building that closet organization, or whatever other nonsense just never quite gets done because it sounds horrible and people are super busy. One of the greenest things we can do is take care of what we have so we don't need to buy a new one, so this might be the ticket for someone you care about.

4. Food- Take someone a lasagna or pot pie or something they can stick in their freezer, not under the tree. Much like house repairs, cooking can be a real pain in the bumper this time of year. It can really help someone out. If you aren't sure what to make, but you want to give more practical gifts, you could also stock a pantry or buy them all (recycled) paper goods (I love this idea- a year's worth of paper towels sounds so lame, but it is kind of awesome actually).

5. Date Night- A gift card for a night out is not exactly new territory, but it's a classic for a reason. People love to eat out, and this gives them a good reason to go do it!

6. A Museum Membership- If your giftee lives near a museum (or zoo? or theater? science center?), a membership could be a great gift! It basically gives them a constant reason to go visit, and members at many museums have access to activities and events they may not otherwise. Perfect for an art lover, animal lover, or just someone who loves to learn. Also great for stay at home parents, as most of these places have weekday activities that cater to small children and their adults.

7. Donating to a Charity in their Honor- For that person who really does have everything, and they really don't want any more stuff. You can find charities that give ornaments or calendars in return for a donation if you want to give them a little token, but I think this would be so cool. If we all put 100 dollars of our Christmas shopping money directly into charities, we could make a huge difference in the world!

This one feels even more relevant than it did a year ago. We need to support organizations fighting for our environment and for human rights. You could also support efforts to help in Syria or even "adopt" a refugee family in their honor. So many options here, so think about what matters most to them.

8. A Visit from a Cleaning Service- Do you know someone with small children? Stop! Do not buy them another baby thing,

Get them a few visits from a cleaning service. You will be their favorite person forever.

This could probably work for all sorts of people, but parents of babies will love you the most, and that's the point of Christmas, right?

Check with them first; no reason to offend anyone. If you don't have much money, but you have some serious cleaning skills, this is a gift that could cost you 0 dollars.

9. Lessons- The Boy and I talk about getting cooking and dancing lessons all the time, but we have never gone for it. If you know someone has debated it, this might be the perfect way to help the person you love finally take the leap. Swimming lessons might be cool for kids too. The community college near us has a super interesting catalog of night classes, so be sure to check out what is near you too!

10. Massages- I think massages are a little awkward, but not everyone is as wimpy as me. A massage might really make their day. We did this for my brother and sister in law last year as a kind of date? Wow, that sounds awkward to me, but you go ahead and go for it, because we aren't all pasty blogging dorks.

What non-material gifts have you bought for someone?

Some of these are a little steep- I am a big supporter of going in with others to buy gifts! If we all focus on quality and not quantity, I think we can shift our paradigm on Christmas and consumption, focusing more on what really matters and less on stuff! Who can't get behind that?

If you are looking for more shopping inspiration, check out my Giant List of Shopping Lists!

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Fourth Anniversary Inspiration- Fruit and Flower Inspiration and Fun

By your fourth anniversary, it sure can be easy to phone it in. Just head out to dinner and call it a day. I know we did that here way more than I would have liked, but we are also 9 months into a pregnancy, so I forgive us. Some years you just aren't going to nail it.

On the other hand, I think this anniversary (and it's fruity theme) actually lends itself to TONS of cool and fun ideas for activiities and decorations. You can do this one WELL, my friends. Do better than we did.

 Make this year a fun memory, not just a throwaway.

What to Do

The ideas on Pinterest for this anniversary are particularly lame. Basically, just fruit puns. I have nothing against fruit puns, but its no inside tent or leather den or really anything fun. But clearly, they have missed the boat here, because I think so many great ideas are waiting to happen!

1. Berry-picking- I know it sounds cheesy, but we have had the best time doing this. Living in Northern California, we could actually go pick strawberries right by the beach. Can you hear the sea lions when you look at this picture? Needless to say, it was cool. Lots of areas, rural and urban have picking farms nearby, and dependent on your anniversary date, you could do whatever is seasonal and available. Then go home and make something with it. It's an activity that is out of the ordinary, but it won't break the bank either.

2. Start a garden- Are you a late-spring/ early-summer couple? You got this. Plant something. Plant a bush or a tree in the anniversary's honor, and every year you can see how much it grows. Don't have a yard? Plant an herb garden you can use at home OR look and see if there is any planting that needs done in your neighborhood. You could even volunteer together for replanting somewhere or to work for a day in a community garden. It can be so fun to get your hands dirty, and isn't it always somehow better to do this kind of thing for someone else?

A good way to revise the flower/ fruit theme is "Growing." Your marriage isn't new anymore, but now we all know the secret that things don't stop growing just because they aren't saplings. Think about things that grow in your life and build your anniversary plans around keeping things growing.

3. Go to (or Make) Dinner Together- We went out for a fancy dinner this year, and when food is part of the theme, a dinner makes sense (otherwise, it can feel a little bit like the easiest possible answer).But I do think food in general makes sense, and if you have a fruit that especially resonates, you could pick it as a theme for food for the week!

Do a fun fruit salad. Or carve something out of fruit? I want to see some anniversary- themed watermelon sculptures!

I mean, come on. From Seasons of Joy

Maybe try a whole week of new recipes? Could you make a whole week of mango meals? Or try all the weird fruits in the grocery store you never go near? I think there is a fun adventure here waiting to happen. On that note...

What to Eat

This anniversary screams cake, so I am kind of freaking out that I haven't picked a cake (or its toppers yet). How do you pick when there are so many good options? Two years ago I made a lemon cake, and I will be honest with you, it wasn't that good. I obviously didn't pick the right thing. So this year I am looking for some fruity inspiration:

from Design Sponge

Pie! I love this anniversary pie from Design Sponge. So simple and chic, and it might be a good choice if you aren't a cake couple. I love this heart pie crust as well.

from Eat Spin Run Repeat

Fruit Cake. You can do an actual fruitcake for a Christmas anniversary, but how cool is this for summer anniversaries? I love Eat Spin Run Repeat's step by step tutorial, but you really could make an amazing cake with whatever fruit you like (or matches your wedding colors).

Just a Regular Old Amazing Cake. There is infinite pinteresty goodness around cakes with fruit. This is a goldmine, so you only have to find what idea fits you best. I had all sorts of ideas, and our cake was jank. I mean, really jank. Such a mess that I won't even put it up here, which I am never above doing. So let's look at other people's successes and ignore my 4th year failure:

from Baker by Nature

Baker by Nature has a recipe for a seriously beautiful lemon and blueberry cake. So nice, and it looks so pretty.

from Dagmar's Kitchen

This chocolate cake by Dagmar's Kitchen was the vision I had in my head when I thought about the cake. So pretty with the chocolate and the berries. Someday later I will make this cake. This one from Tastes Better from Scratch looks like a nice combination of the two.

from Plain Chicken

Lemon Sour Cream Pound Cake from Plain Chicken looks less fussy but still very pretty. Might be a good route if you don't have a ton of time.

Ok, these are my best fruit and flower ideas! What did you do for your 4th anniversary?

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10 Moments You Have Living Far Away from Home Longterm

1. The first 24 hours of a visit, where everyone has forgotten how annoying you are and seem genuinely happy to see you- When we get back, our niece and nephew are so excited, because they know we will play with them. They forget all the times we have to leave or we just want to sit and talk to their grandma. A lot of our personality sins (lateness, crazy schedules, know-it-alls, eventually getting tired at Simon Says) are temporarily forgotten in the warm light of memory. This visit has the potential to be the best yet (vacations work the same way- the first 24 hours are almost always the best), and this is one of the nicest parts of living far away. 

2.The last 24 hours of a visit, where everyone is sick of your bullshit and wants to get back to their normal life-We leave our shit everywhere, we are always on the run (though in our defense, if you want our undivided attention, you know where to find us the other 47 weeks of the year), and we are never around when we are supposed to be.  We are a weird kind of visitor, because we used to be familiar, but we are still visitors, disrupting the usual routine. By the end of trips, we can usually tell people just want their cars/ space/ time back. For the last 3 Christmases, we have said we shouldn't stay so long on the day we leave, because everyone is so solidly sick of us by then. It's a tough balance to find, and when I figure it out, I will let you know.

3. That moment where you call the place you live currently home, but you know it isn't home home- If you can go to the grocery store without anyone asking about a family member or seeing someone you really don't want to see, you aren't home (on the other hand, you could buy any weird thing you want, and your grandma won't find out about it later in the week). 

4. That moment where you meet someone from the same region and are filled with radiant joy- Everytime I see Steelers clothing, I get excited, and who cares about sports. I got even more excited last week to see a Pirates poster in a neighbor's window, because you really have to be from the area to like the Pirates. They don't attract many fair weather fans. In my graduate program, one of my colleagues was from Altoona, and we spent hours waxing poetic and Sheetz hot dogs and Smiley cookies. I am psyched when someone can tell I am from Western PA because of my diction. What you realize when you live away from home is that you still belong to that place, so you connect with people who have similar experiences. I notice this with my Sicilian Father-in-law as well, who has deep and important connections with people who also immigrated from Italy.

This joy is like tenfold when people come to visit. It is the awesomest.Your visits are basically my favorite thing in the world.

5. That moment where you are shocked that some people don't think Red Lobster is the height of fanciness- And on the flipside, when you are telling a family member about that cool restaurant you just went to, and you can see in their eyes they think you are a doushe. And you know they are a little bit right, because you probably would be happier to go back to Red Lobster. Mmm cheddar biscuits.

6. That moment when you realize that you are missing the hard work of being present, and that the person you are looking at has no idea how hard being absent is- I still know that being there all the time has its own work, even if it seems like I have forgotten. It forces you to be consistent, to show up for ALL of the moments that aren't that fun, and to be expected to make food on holidays (eeek). You also can have opinions on the total lack of jobs there, but you don't have to feel personally responsible for growing the city's opportunities (though I wonder how much millenial guilt there is about leaving hometowns). You feel selfish, because we grew up in a space where you take care of the people and places that took care of you, and you aren't participating in that anymore. You want that sometimes boring work, because it makes everything else mean something and what makes communities great, but the entries to this get slimmer as the time grows longer. It is hard to not eventually grow sad and bitter about these things (at least for me, who reads it all as these series of rejections, even if the root of the problem is my own doing), but I am trying to be intentional about that, because I don't want to live with that bitterness forever.

Coming back to your small town feels a little like coming back from the dead every couple of months. This is the sad realization that you weren't really missed.  People have moved on without you. Time has marched on without you. People still miss you, but its like one tiny puzzle piece of their life is gone, and they can mostly live without it. You, on the other hand, spend most of your days feeling like a lone puzzle piece wrongly shuffled into another box.

7. That moment where you realize you may be selfish, but at least you have the courage to make a fool out of yourself basically daily- You find yourself standing at an art opening where a few people are naked but fisherman's hats. Or you spend a Saturday afternoon watching laser light shows set to Motown music in a planetarium. Or you meet someone for Thai food for lunch. Or for the millionth time, you introduce yourself to someone completely new and try to strike up a conversation. When your comfort zone is so far away that all bets are off, and that makes living far away kind of fun and cool.

8. That moment where you can no longer think of a major airport you haven't slept on the floor of- Why have I gotten to Pennsylvania by way of Atlanta? Or Boston? Eventually, you have even seen all the scenic routes, and you have very specific opinions on your favorite airports, primarily based on whether they have a really efficient Jamba Juice, a cool light show, or a Pizza Hut/ Hagen Daaz combo. You also have ones you hate, based on their benches, their weird pretzel smells, or their total lack of moving walkways (I am looking at you Phoenix, what the hell). You know you have lived away from home too long if you know exactly which airports I am referring to.

9. That moment when you walk back into your own space and can really appreciate that you are making a teeny tiny home for yourself- Even if you live many zipcodes away, the home you make feels way better than all that empty spaces in between this transience and home's permanence (sorry Nebraska). Everyone is there, if just in pictures and spirit, and that can be great too. It can be encouraging and exciting to feel like we have our own little thing going on. Plus, this is also the moment you get off the supershuttle, so life is really good.

10.  That moment when you realize, in horror, that unless you do something, your kids may not know their cousins well, they may not ever get to spend Christmas in their own beds, and they may not understand how great it is to grow up in a small town- I grapple with these questions, of what we may be robbing our kids of, all the time. I don't know the answer, except that I am learning day by day that the fact that our family looks different than the ones we grew up in isn't necessarily a bad thing. Growing up in a small town builds a love for tradition, a deep commitment to family and friends, and establishing a strong sense of who you are, but if you have to leave, it can make you feel all the more vulnerable out in the world. It's a tricky question for sure, and if you know the answer, let us know.

I know this comes off as negative, but it really is just being honest about a state of living I know a lot of people have been stuck in. I am really grateful to have these adventures, but I also miss home so much. Looking forward to being back in PA tomorrow night!

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