Less waste at Christmas: 5 ideas for a sustainable celebration

Christmas without a Christmas tree, colorful balls and presents is unthinkable. But instead of consuming blindly, we should also think about our fellow human beings and the environment. After all, Christmas is the festival of love – also for future generations. A logical conclusion: to celebrate Christmas sustainably. Or at least sustainableis.

In the video: It's that easy to make an Advent wreath with a rustic look

Zero-waste Christmas aims to produce no or as little waste as possible when it comes to Christmas decorations and gifts. Above all, environmentally harmful plastic waste should be avoided. For a sustainable, waste-free Christmas, you can use everything you find in nature or at home. Keyword upcycling.

However, that's not all. A zero-waste Christmas is primarily about questioning and reducing your own consumption. As we all know, less is more. This is how we learn to appreciate Christmas presents as something special again.

Homemade things usually come from the heart. Therefore standand self-made Christmas presents in the focus of Zero Waste Christmas. Great side effect: If you celebrate Christmas sustainably, you often even save money.

The best thing about a sustainable Christmas, however, is that you can let off steam creatively and free yourself from the eternal compulsion to buy. At least that should be the long-term plan. Because just like other zero-waste ideas, this isn't about rushing the project and burning all the Christmas decorations you bought from previous years.

Use the following eco-friendly Christmas ideas for inspiration. You don't even need to implement all of it. But maybe you're still missing an Advent calendar, a Christmas tree or one or two gifts. Then you'll get lots of ideas about sustainability here.

Tipp:For larger decorative pieces such as pine cones or pretty gemstones, use bulbous preserving jars. Put the lid on, put a tealight or pillar candle on it and you're done.

Now you can light one more candle every Advent Sunday and enjoy your homemade Advent wreath for the rest of the Christmas season. It couldn't be simpler or more natural!

The most cost-effective way to have a sustainable Advent calendar is to simply equip it yourself. More important than thatInside is the outside of the calendar. With many Advent calendars you buy, you end up sitting on a mountain of paper and plastic afterwards.

To prevent this from happening, you can make homemade Advent calendars with cloth bags. Alternatively, you can also paint empty and cleaned jam jars and hide the mini gifts in them. Decorated matchboxes are suitable for jewelry. Things get classy with wooden boxes; cheaper with recyclable sandwich bags.

In the video: Idea for a DIY Advent calendar (even if not completely sustainable)

In addition to artificial Christmas trees, real Christmas trees can also be difficult to combine with the sustainability concept of a zero-waste Christmas. When growing trees, chemicals and pesticides are often used, which pollute the environment.

A nice alternative to sustainable organic Christmas trees are so-called “living Christmas trees”. Alive because the trees arrive in the pot with their roots intact. You can rent them as rental trees in garden centers or tree nurseries in many places. After the festival, you either bring them back to the dealer or you buy them and plant them in your garden. At least that's the plan.

In addition, there are many ways to have one. For example, from branches or pine branches of different sizes. Or you can place a wooden stepladder across so that it takes on the typical Christmas tree shape. You can also grab a string of lights that are flying around and attach them to the wall in serpentine lines as a Christmas tree.

Minimalist and beautiful: Christmas tree decorations made from old sheet music or decorative prints that you place on the wall in a pyramid shape like a fir tree.

Zero-waste Christmas gifts include things from your home or from a flea market that you can simply give away. What you no longer need can make someone else happy. But non-material Christmas gifts, such as homemade vouchers for shared activities, are also great for a sustainable Christmas.

Here are a few ideas for zero-waste gifts:

Another important point when it comes to sustainable Christmas presents: packaging without waste. Wrapping presents often results in a huge mountain of paper that is rarely recyclable and comes at the expense of the environment.

Examples of sustainable gift packaging include:

The best source for cheap and sustainable Christmas decorations is nature. During your autumn or winter walk, pick up whatever you find on the ground: loose pine branches, colorful autumn leaves, nuts, acorns, chestnuts, pine cones or gnarled branches.

You can decorate the natural decoration with candles (to be on the safe side, it's best to use real wax LED candles), cinnamon sticks and anise stars. Orange or tangerine stars, which you form from the fruit peels with cookie cutters, can be used as a fragrant sprinkle.

You can also easily make sustainable Christmas decorations or Christmas tree decorations yourself. For example, made from soft felt fabric, beautifully folded book pages, papier-mâché or wooden beads. You can be inventive when hanging it up: an old clothes hanger can be turned into a Christmas mobile and hanging branches can be turned into an alternative Christmas tree.

If you are looking for more ideas for a sustainable Christmas, we can highly recommend the book “Zero Waste Christmas” by Alexandra Achenbach. There you will find lots of inspiration and tips for an environmentally friendly Advent and Christmas season.

This is how it's done:
1. Place starch, baking soda and water in a small pot and mix well.

2. Heat the mixture while stirring constantly, bring to the boil and continue to simmer gently over low heat. The mass now begins to change from liquid to solid. Caution! This can happen pretty quickly. Once it has reached a very mushy consistency and falls off the spoon with difficulty, it's time to cool. So turn off the oven, take the pot off the stove and relax.

3. After about 10 minutes of cooling time, the false porcelain can be further processed in a large mixing bowl. Now knead with your hands. If the mixture is too sticky, add a little more starch until a smooth, white dough is formed.

4. The dough is ready to shape. Two things first: Similar to salt dough, the finished decorative objects shrink by around 10 percent. And when rolled out, the cold porcelain should be approximately 4-8mm thick. Pieces that are too thick or too thin may develop small cracks during curing.

5. Lightly dust the base with starch and roll out the dough carefully.

6. Now comes the highlight: the dough is printed with crystal glass. To do this, carefully press the ground glass surfaces onto the surface of the cold porcelain until a beautiful impression is created.

7. Use the cookie cutters to cut out the cold porcelain tree decorations and use the wooden skewer to poke a small hole through it for hanging. Complete!

8. Depending on the size and thickness of the pendants and the humidity in the room, drying time may take 1-3 days. Meanwhile, carefully turn our pretty pieces of jewelry several times.

Tipp:If you like, you can paint your cold porcelain stars with felt-tip pens or colorful acrylic paint.