Great suggestions... we'll be wrapping gifts in brown paper grocery bags. My daughter will be decorating them with drawings, which we are hoping makes them a little more personal.

Hi FunFastFashion & richard,

I glad to see you started this discussion because i was thinking on this earlier this week and wanted to share some of the things my family and I have done over the years to reduce paper clutter.

1. Christmas cards- when my daughter was in grade school,I would give her the cards and she would use them along with other scraps to make tree ornaments, mobiles (think hangers with cutout pictures hanging from them) or make xmas gifts for her teacher and her family with them. I havent bought a tree ornament in eons because my daughter has supplied unique and treasurable decorations using old cards and scraps from my sewing kit.

2. Now that my daughter is older and no longer is into these things, I plan to send out a xmas email starting next year. I will attach a family photo to my message.

3. Wrapping gifts-Ugh! dont have time or interest in this. Many years ago,

I asked my daughter to take some gifts boxes that I had saved from the previous Christmas and wrap them in all occasion paper. The boxes have a separate top and bottom compartments (like the ones that they give customers in departments stores). She wrapped the top and bottom sections separately. When a family member unwraps their gift, all they have to do is remove the top and look inside the box. I reuse these prewrapped boxes throughout the year for other holidays and special occasions.

4. When my children were in middle school, I started giving them cash so they could shop and buy their own gifts. They loved shopping after xmas when the prices were much lower.I didnt have to spend all that time and gasoline running around shopping and then later returning unwanted/wrong size gifts. My kids loved getting cash because they purchased what they wanted at a lower price! In addition to the cash, we would plan a family trip or outing so we could enjoy the holidays doing something fun together.

5. Now that my kids are in high school and college, I give each of them one gift card. Whenever possible we plan a big family meal or vacation together. This year my son who is visiting us from college said to me, "Mom, I dont want a gift card or anything. I just want to spend time with my family and see my old friends." Wow! That made me smile from ear to ear and then I replied, "I do, too!"

Have a beautiful "green" Christmas!

I'd love to think that I'm doing this because I'm soooo "green" but in fact this is a lazy person's tip: Gift bags! They still look festive but very easy to reuse. And if you stick with solid colors -- red, blue, yellow, green -- you can reuse them for the rest of the year.

Now as for all the other people who are giving gifts... hmmm, I have no idea what to do about them.

I am using some of last year's Christmas paper, some gift bags, and I confess to purchasing some new gift wrap. I do use VERY old wool knit socks for stockings, use a self cleaning oven which is more efficient than a non self cleaning oven. The cards I send are ones from my photos, and can be framed, or used with a magnet on the refrigerator. They, at least, are humorous, so they should increase positive attitudes, so one is more likely to be able to think and think green.

I have done online purchasing, have been getting a lot of use out of my utility knife, and recycling the cardboard, taking peanuts to UPS Store.

Problem is UPS store won't take grain based peanuts because they get wet, moldy, and deteriorate. I was distressed to hear that. I thought it was a great idea to have recyclable shipping peanuts.

I only bought two Christmas gift wine bags...no wrapping paper, ribbon. Truly I'm not Scrooge. Sent each of my gifts (checks to nieces and nephews) in their Christmas card. Sent folks gift cards in their Christmas cards as well. I didn't even buy tape this year.

I like Christmas.

Love gift bags. At one of those gift exchanges we went to a few weeks ago where you can steal back a gift only so many times I stole the gift back I brought. And kept the super cute gift bag to boot. I'll re-use it at the next party.