Christmas Corner Gift Savings Plan

Because we are all facing several global crises this season, Christmas Corner decided to come up with a plan to help each of us have a holiday season that is designed to make the best of the issues we face. This plan has 3 main goals for this Christmas:

1. Save Money
2. Save The Planet
3. Save Our Families

Here's the Christmas Corner Gift Savings Plan to help us achieve those goals:

We are going to borrow the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle concept from waste management. You remember that, right? The concept of the 3 R's is to extract the maximum practical benefits from products while generating the minimum amount of waste. Let's recycle that concept into a gift-giving guide. Here is a simple infographic that helps us visualize the plan in action.

The first key concept of the plan is Reduce. In our plan, reducing will apply to three areas:

• reduce the number of new products we consume
• reduce the amount of money we spend on gifts
• reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills

We'll start by altering the old "draw names from a hat / Secret Santa" concept. Although this old standby is a great way to enable everyone to save money and purchase fewer products, it does have its drawbacks. We often want to give gifts to everyone in our family. We want to show how much we love and appreciate them, and we don't want to only show that to one member of the family.

So our Reduce part of the plan is to only draw names for a brand new, store-bought gift, with an agreed-upon dollar amount limit set. As always, the names of each family member are written on scraps of paper and placed in a hat. One by one, each person draws a name from the hat. If the person chooses his or her own name, the name is returned to the hat, and another is chosen. When all the names are drawn, each person now has the name of one other person for whom they will purchase a brand-new gift. For example, if "Joe" has drawn "Mary's name", Joe would then buy one sparkling new present for Mary. Joe would not be purchasing any new gifts for anyone else in the family. That's the standard Secret Santa concept, but our plan goes a little farther. Although Joe is only buying one brand new gift for Mary, he will still be giving presents to everyone else in the family. Every person does the same. Let's continue on to see how the rest of the plan works.

The second "R" in our plan is Reuse. Because Joe is only purchasing one brand-new gift for Mary, but he has all the other family members on his gift list, his task is now to find a gift for each by Reusing products. He can choose reused products in any number of ways, but here are a few ideas.

• Joe can pick up second-hand gifts from garage sales or thrift stores, often for just a couple of dollars.
• Joe can re-gift items he's received in previous years (as long as he doesn't offend the family member who gave him the gift originally).
• Joe can even take advantage of some of the newer projects happening all across the world, such as the Freecycle Network, where communities band together to give away their unwanted items to their neighbors for free.

By reusing products, Joe manages to show his appreciation to all of his family members, plus he saves money, and helps save the planet as well.

Finally, the third "R" in our plan is Recycle. Our gift-giving plan suggest the following ways of recycling.

• Reuse old Christmas cards that you've received, by turning them into gift name tags. Simply cut the pretty face of a card into small tag-sized strips. Instant name tags!
• If you buy wrapping paper, try to purchase only paper that comes from recycled materials. Better yet, recycle your own wrapping paper each year, or turn other materials (comics, magazines, old clothes, etc.) into wrapping "paper".
• Recycle the photos you've taken all year, by creating a photo montage slideshow on sites like OneTrueMedia.com. Include the url to the slideshow on each gift tag you place on your gifts.

By following our Gift Savings Plan, you'll accomplish all the goals we stated in the beginning. You'll save money by only purchasing one brand-new gift. You'll help save our planet by consuming less, and reusing and recycling products that would have ended up in landfills. Finally, you'll be contributing to the goal of saving our families, as we all spend time getting back to what really matters this holiday season - appreciating our families.

Feel free to modify our Gift Savings Plan to fit your lifestyle. Add your own ideas. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle your gifts using your own techniques. You'll save money, save the planet, and have family fun! That's makes for a truly special holiday!