Some advice for anyone who dreads Christmas shopping: don’t do it! Maybe it’s time to try a No-Gift Christmas.
A No-Gift Christmas doesn’t make you a Grinch. It’s a fun (and cheap) alternative to store-bought gifts. Instead of buying gifts, you can give someone the gift of your time, whether this be through charitable gifts, home-made gifts or shared experiences. A No-Gift Christmas aims to simplify Christmas. The hours that were once spent scouring the shelves and negotiating busy streets with your hands weighed down by shopping bags can instead be spent with the people you love.
The concept of a No-Gift Christmas has gained interest in the last few years for a variety of reasons. Some people adopt a No-Gift Christmas because they want to focus their Christmases away from consumerism or back towards religion. Some people do it for environmental or economic reasons. And lots of people simply do it because they hate the stress of overcrowded Christmas shopping.
So, how can you do a No-Gift Christmas?
Well, you could give back to Charity. This might mean making a donation to your friend’s favourite charity in their name. For example, you could sponsor their favourite animal at Dublin Zoo. You could also support a Symbolic Gift Giving programme. Oxfam’s Unwrapped Gifts offers a selection of life-changing gifts to people who need them. Prices start as low as five euro. These gifts can help fund different schemes: a girl’s education, a drinking-well, a cooking-stove, a clutch of chickens etc.
You could also give someone the gift of a shared experience. This could be as simple as going for a scenic walk with a picnic, going to the drive-thru or cooking a meal together.
You could also organise a Christmas scavenger hunt for any kids in the family (or adults!). If you’re going to be separated from your loved ones this Christmas then you could organise a Christmas quiz or activity on Zoom.
You could go the traditional route of giving someone a home-made gift too. This doesn’t just mean knitting someone an ugly scarf. No, home-made gifts don’t require great skill, they just require your time.
For example, you could make someone a Spotify playlist, a DIY facemask, an iMovie video of your best memories or you could bake them something. You could even propagate a plant for them. For kids you could make home-made slime, with them or for them. Maybe you could take inspiration from this year’s Woodies ad and do an odd-job for someone!
So, contrary to what the name might suggest, a No-Gift Christmas doesn’t necessarily mean you get no gifts. It’s a way of redefining what gifts are. Maybe it’s time to reconsider some of our old Christmas traditions and introduce some new ones! As a wise, green-haired, Grinchy creature once said, “What if Christmas,…doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas… perhaps…means a little bit more!”.