For me, I’m trying to decouple two elements: I hate the wastefulness, but I like (some) decoration.

Decorating builds anticipation and for me it’s a big part of the holiday itself. I both enjoy decorating and looking at the decorations. So I’ve strived to decorate with as little waste as possible. I create a lot of decorations myself, reuse the same ones year over year, prefer paper and cardboard over plastic. Next step is food decor! That’s also why I like carving pumpkins: a low-waste fun decor option.

I haven’t found a solution to cheap useless gifts yet… mostly because I’m not in control of what others gift me. On my side, I try gifting consumables and/or handcrafted things. Everybody likes a batch of homemade cookies