Written by Catherine Marcotte
With the holidays just around the corner, you might be thinking about gifting. Though you might be excited to gather with family and friends, the pressure to bring everyone gifts can feel overwhelming. While gift-giving is one of my favourite birthday and holiday rituals, it can be costly, wasteful, and time-consuming. In the last few years especially, I’ve been thinking about ways to make gifting more meaningful and sustainable. Here are a few ways I’ve been approaching homemade and second-hand gifts.
Let me start by saying that books are a great (and easy to wrap!) gift. While I love nothing more than supporting Canadian publishers and local bookstores, used bookstores are a great place to shop for the holidays. If you’re weary of presenting a worn-out book as a gift, it’s been my experience that most books in used bookstores are in excellent shape. You might even find rare or special editions that wouldn’t otherwise be available through mainstream booksellers. I recommend popping into Berry and Peterson’s on King St to take a lot at their wide range of genres.
If you’re interested in clothes, jewelry, or homeware, Kingston has a lot of local thrift stores to choose from. I’m partial to the Montreal St Collective, YGK Thrift, and Phase 2 downtown.
If you’re nervous about gifting second-hand items, reach out to family and friends you think might be interested in it and ask if they’d consider doing a homemade/ second-hand themed gift exchange. I’ve been doing this with family and friends for years now. We’ve realized that these gifts can often more be thoughtful and meaningful than the things we’d mindlessly picked up in the past just to have something to wrap.
In terms of hand-made items, this might be a good way to dust off your most creative hobby or pick up a new one. The Internet is rife with great ideas for sustainable, low-cost, and hand-made gifts. Often, they use found or second-hand materials to make something new. I’ve been toying with the idea of making candles in second-hand cups and even old, empty candle vessels. If you knit, sew, or crochet, things like coasters, scrunchies, or ornaments can be a good option. There’s a whole host of videos and tutorials online to get you started. That said, if you’re not already drowning in yarn or fabric, the up-front costs of starting a new hobby can be pretty high. Found materials can be your best friend here. Things like pasta boxes can be broken down to cut out bookmarks. If drawing or painting isn’t your thing, you can make a collage from old newspaper or magazine cut-outs. You can get ribbons, glue sticks, and anything else you might need from the dollar store or local craft stores.
If this all sounds like more effort than adding things to online carts, that’s because it might be. Even so, I have a feeling that incorporating some unique second-hand or home-made items into your gifting this year might just make your gift exchanges even more worthwhile.