Knight
Today is December, so in my mind, it is the start of the holiday season.
At least it is this year.
Admittedly, I go back and forth on this — some years I try to get all my shopping done early while other years find me waiting until the Big Day is close at hand. The last-minute approach is how I am playing it this time around.
Now, to get started.
I don’t want to buy all my gifts online but, boy, is it tempting. On the positive side, it saves time, and I can stay home while I shop. I have read arguments that online buying is more environmentally benign than going to brick and mortar stores. But I have also read there are environmental negatives to the whole e-tail enterprise. At any rate, to this shopper, going to stores to browse, smile, chat and deal with real human beings is part of the Christmas experience. Besides, last year’s COVID December isolation makes me even more want to interact with people rather than robots.
After I haul the just-perfect gifts home, I will check the storage room in the basement where we stow empty gift boxes. We keep previously received gift boxes so that we can reuse them. Very ecological — or very cheap, depending on how you look at it.
Our storage room is only so big, so Becky and I have learned to be judicious about which boxes to keep. We agree that “shirt boxes” are useful for many items besides shirts, so we try to make sure we have some of those as well as some smaller and larger. Although we find useful the boxes made with this thin cardboard, we keep only a few of the heavier corrugated boxes — the kind in which online items often are packaged. I find they are harder to keep closed when I try to repurpose them as gift boxes. However, corrugated boxes often have other useful purposes, so we keep some of them around.
Personally I am a sucker for boxes with character. I like boxes with a retro feel. I have used old board game boxes and boxes with weird shapes. I have boxes that came from now defunct department stores such as Lazarus, L.S. Ayres and Wm. H. Block. Ah, the memories I associate with these names: the bright decorations, the holiday music, the smiling sales people wearing festive colors — those were the days when Christmas shopping was an event in itself.
It’s a cliché, but when I was a small child, I loved to play in the boxes the gifts came in. And I still enjoy the cliché of putting a small item — some jewelry, maybe — in a box, then putting that box in a bigger one and then that in a bigger one. That trick never gets old.
Of course, we have an assortment of paper gift bags. How can you just throw away a perfectly good gift bag? My problem with gift bags is when I use them I am usually in a hurry, and I worry they send a message that I haven’t put much effort into the gift. A present that has been gift-wrapped shows at least some thoughtful focus. Again, the ecological ramifications of one-use gift paper versus reusable gift bags is a factor in the entire gift-giving undertaking.
While I’m out shopping, maybe I can find some good deals on boxes and gift paper this year. Apparently some stores that sell things for a dollar are adding a plus sign (+) to their names to account for inflation. I think adding a plus sign and calling it a “Dollar Twenty-Five Store” is a good marketing strategy. It literally puts a positive (+) spin on it.
Of course, if I am frugal and thrifty I may not have to buy new bags or boxes at all.
