S1 Ep6 Mindful gifting

And a little bit of festive magic. Hello, and welcome to episode six, all about mindful gifting. This feels very timely for a couple of reasons. Firstly, as you probably know, it's Thanksgiving in the USA today, which seems from over here, from afar, to be such a wonderful holiday, a time to gather with loved ones and give thanks for the goodness in our lives. And gifts are so often an expression of our gratitude and appreciation for other people.

So it seems like a good day to talk about that ahead of the holiday season. And secondly, as you probably also know, we're heading into the Black Friday through Cyber Monday weekend, which has for the past few years since his invention as a retail festival, fallen on the first weekend after Thanksgiving. Although this year some companies have been offering deals all November

long. I imagine with the lockdown here in England, a lot of retailers have been absolutely freaking out because Black Friday is usually a huge day in store, they will be hoping for lots of online sales. I'm sure Christmas gifts often centre around the world of retail and that industry, like many others, is in crisis right now. Here in the UK this weekend should be seeing independent high streets thronging with customers for Small Business

Saturday. But everything is shut due to our lockdown or non-essential retailers have closed their doors. The truth is I feel quite conflicted about gifts this year. On the one hand, I want to support the small business owners and makers and producers who have had such a hard year, and obviously I do that with my money spending it there wherever I can. You know, a lot of them are hanging onto their

livelihoods by a thread. They bring so much to our communities and our high streets and in many cases provide essential services in terms of people feeling connected to those around them. So they're really important. On the other hand, I do think gift giving has gotten out of hand in recent years and the excessive expense and waste troubles me.

I think this year is going to be different in many ways, so on balance, today, I'd like to talk about mindful gifting, which is not about buying nothing at all, but which is about first asking whether or not to give a gift. And then if you decide to do so, being really thoughtful about it, including where you buy it from. And if it's something that you buy, how you wrap it and send it as well as what you actually give. So I thought we could try a

little exercise today. Get yourself a piece of paper and cut it into several narrow strips. You're going to need one strip for each person you bought a present for last year. And a few more if there's anyone else you think you might add to that gift list this year. Now we need to make a ladder with those

strips. So the person who you absolutely have to give a present at the top, there might be a few of those immediate family for example, and the person who it's least essential that you give a gift to this year at the bottom. Now this is not a popularity contest. It's not about who you love the most. The question is, how essential is it that you give these people a gift or gifts this year. So the most essential at the top and the least essential at the bottom and put all the others in

between in order. And then look at each name in turn and ask yourself, "Do I really need to give this person an individual present, as in a present from me to them, or is there another way of doing it this year? Could I get together with other people and contribute to a shared present? Or could I forget about presents completely and show them I care in a different way? Perhaps with a long phone call

or a card or a toast? Or a shared flask of coffee and a tin of homemade gingerbread on a pre-Christmas hike? You know there are so many ways that we can let people know how much they mean to us. For anyone you don't need to buy for... Once you've asked yourself that question, if you decide, you know what, actually, there's something else I could do this year, that's not buying them a

gift... Then move their name off the ladder, and make a note of how you might show that you care without giving them an individual gift from you this year. OK, I challenge you to remove at least one name. And from your ladder. Then you go back to the ladder, and you look at each person's name in turn and ask yourself, okay, if I'm going to give this person a gift, does it need to be something that I buy? Or could it be a promise of my time or an experience that I create for them, or perhaps

something that I make? And if you do decide it should be something that you buy, of course, you then have various decisions you can make about where you source it from, and all of those kinds of things, in order to make it more of a mindful choice. And now think about your overall present budget and split it between the people on your gift ladder. When you start doing this before you even think about going shopping, it really helps

to keep costs down. And it makes you more creative with what you might give to people. Personally, I have three gifting guideposts when I have an idea for present for someone, I ask myself, is it mindful? Is it meaningful? And is it memorable? And I go into this in a lot more detail in my book, Calm Christmas and Happy New Year. And I share a ton of ideas for mindful gifts. But as a starting point, it's helpful just to ask yourself that: Is it mindful? Is it meaningful? And is it

memorable? So what are you telling someone about how you see them with the gift that you choose to give them. That's something is worth pondering over a nice cover before you hit the shops, or before you hop on your laptop to click and order. I had to write a piece for an American parenting magazine recently, offering advice for gifts for children that are good for the wallet and good for the

planet. Of course, it completely depends on the child's age and preferences but I came up with a few principles rather than specific gift ideas. And I thought I'd share them with you too in case they inspire something for you. Of course, most of these principles can work just as well when deciding on gifts for adults. So this year, perhaps you might like to think about these kinds of

experience. You know, you could transform a room in your house into a winter wonderland or turn your garden shed into Santa's Grotto, things like that. And gifts that offer your time skills and attention in the form of vouchers or promissory notes.

You know, here's a hammer, it's a physical representation that we're going to build a tree house together this summer, or you know, a small token that indicates a future shared experience, like a jar of homemade marshmallows tied with a label stating the promise of a camping trip together later this year. And of course, these kinds of presents are great for adults

too. You might offer someone vouchers to walk their dog or mow their lawn or, you know, send them a letter every month until you meet again next Christmas. The possibilities are absolutely endless. You could say, "I'll pick you up and take you on a four hour Magical Mystery Tour, and we'll go for a cup of tea and a cake somewhere"

things like that. I mean, how much would you love someone to give you something like that, where what you get is their time and their attention and a lovely experience together. And then gifts people can use or eat - children love these, adults love these, especially if they've been handmade by you.

And gifts that offer a sense of nostalgia for you which prompts you to tell them stories about your own childhood, you know, a jigsaw you could do together that might lead you to telling them about how you did jigsaws with your grandfather and what kind of life he led eighty years ago, that kind of thing. And gifts that they can plant and grow like a Christmas tree

for next year. There were so many different ways that we can give people wonderful gifts including children without having to go to a shop to buy them. So maybe just spend a little bit of time this year, and it might be something you do already, thinking about how you can bring more of you to the gifts that you give this year.

What I love about these kind of gifts so often is you can write them on a piece of paper but then a box wrap it up and give it to someone so they get the excitement of having a wrapped gift, but then they get the joy of knowing that it's something really special that they can look forward to inside. It's also worth remembering, I think that taking care of your money is a form of self-care if it reduces your stress now, and also when your credit card bill

turns up in January. And also, this is something people don't really talk about, I think is huge, every single pound that you spend on presents, especially presents that are not really wanted or needed. And all the other aspects of Christmas, all of the money you spend on that is money that you don't have to put towards your dreams, or to support the dreams of those who love. I'll say that again.

Every pound, every dollar that you're spending on presents and all the other aspects of Christmas is money you don't have to put towards your dreams. Making the tiny shift from buying one more Christmas pillow, to keeping that money to invest in your dreams, taking a course, reading a book, learning how to do something, upskilling to follow a different kind of career, all of those things can make a huge difference over many years. Do you dream of a more creative

life, perhaps? Maybe you want to switch careers or grow your business or learn something new next year. Then every time you find yourself picking up another half priced Christmas jumper or a funny Christmas mug that you say Oh, that will do for so and so think about the cumulative impact of that kind of shopping on the funds that you're going to have leftover to invest in your own growth and wellbeing or that of your loved ones. I always find this brings things

into sharp focus. You look at the object you've got in your hand, or you've got in your cart online on a website and say, "What am I sacrificing in order to buy this? And it might be that you like, you know, this is this is important. And that's fine. But quite often, we realise it's actually not as important as the longer term investment in our own growth and the growth of those we love.

Having said that, if there are things you know, you need your festive preparations, or you really want to buy. Of course, the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales can save you a huge amount of money if you can avoid being tempted with stuff that you don't need. I know a lot of people don't like the noise of this particular sale and it does feel like we have offers shoved

us from every direction. But it can be a brilliant time to get a bargain on something that you've been really hoping for wishing for, especially on digital offerings because they can be really heavily discounted with no physical product or send. My company heavily discounts all of our life changing online courses in the cyber sale. You can find up to 50% off all of our courses at dowhatyouloveforlife.com and our sister sites makeartthatsells.com and makeitindesign.com all through

the Cyber weekend. If there is a course that you've had your eye on for some time to help you grow your business, build a creative career, write a book, create an online course, become more confident in your choices of what you're doing in your life. If there's a course for that, and you've had your eye on it, and you can get it for half price, why not? You know, make Cyber Monday work for you. Absolutely. And on the topic of following your heart and doing what you

love. I have one final question for you today. What would you really like this year? While you pop that question into your pocket to ponder later, here are some ideas of ways to save money and waste this Christmas taken from my book Calm Christmas, which is packed with loads more ideas like this for preparing for the celebrations.

So of course you can simply give fewer presents, and you can ask for those that you do buy to be shipped with a little packaging as possible and get multiple items shipped together. You can reuse paper from last year and keep paper from this year. And it's really worth trying to avoid sparkly or coated wrapping paper as it cannot be recycled. And most glitter contains micro plastics.

It's been brilliant to hear that a lot of the big supermarkets in the UK this year have decided that all of their own brand wrapping paper will be completely recyclable and it's really worth seeking that out. It has been hard in recent years to find that kind of paper but it's becoming more common. You can use fabric to wrap presents. I absolutely love doing this. Of course fabric can

be reused over and over. And you can tie the corners furoshiki style or fold the fabric around your gift and tie it with a ribbon. If you don't know what the word furoshiki means, it's a Japanese word that is used to describe the fabric used in wrapping gifts, carrying bundles of clothes, also for wrapping a bento lunchbox where cloth often doubles up as a table mat. It's a really simple way of using

fabric to wrap things. And traditionally, from the times when people would carry their clothes to and from a public bath - furo means bath - and they'd also wrap their clothes while they were in the public bath so they didn't get mixed up with another person's clothes. But it's very much part of the wrapping culture now. And it's a really wonderful eco-friendly way to wrap gifts because it looks beautiful and like I said, the cloth can be reused in many ways. There are lots of videos

on YouTube of how to do it. It's about FUROSHIKI. And it's a really wonderful thing to get used to. You can wrap all sorts of shapes quite easily with the

correct size of fabric. And I often do this with a beautiful linen napkin, for example that someone can then keep afterwards, or you can do it with offcuts of fabric if you like making quilts and making clothes and you've got some lovely little pieces left, and you can practice wrapping in the fabric and then tying that little knot and it makes kind of like a handbag that you carry. It's really wonderful. You can also save paper, if you're wrapping with paper, by

wrapping on the diagonal. It's amazing how that does actually end up using less paper, especially for awkward shaped objects. And you can also - this is something I learnt watching people in Japanese stores wrapping things that I had bought - you can fold and tuck in the sides as you wrap using the weight of the gift to hold it so you only end up using one piece of sticky tape at the end.

It's quite complicated to explain on audio but if you imagine, say you have a book on a piece of paper, and it you've put it at an angle, so then you fold a corner all the way over the book and tuck it underneath the book. And then if you go to one side, you can fold and tuck carefully, so actually, the paper at the side goes underneath. And then you can do the same all the way around to end up with one piece of tape on the top to hold everything

together. I'm sure you'd be able to find that on YouTube as well under examples of Japanese rapping. But just play around with it. It's really fun. Of course, you can repurpose old maps, newspaper, pages from magazines. That's wonderful for making original presents. I often use my children's drawings actually to wrap gifts and you can use baskets, tins anything you want.

You can use uncoated brown kraft paper as a neutral base, which then looks gorgeous with sprigs of greenery and raffia, festive ribbons. And you can personalise stamps, you can print out photographs. And there's a lot of online photo services now that will print your photographs, especially off Instagram to look like an old Polaroid. That's a wonderful thing to use as a gift tag, for

example. And so many different things you can do You can use those beeswax wraps to wrap a gift because then someone afterwards can wash it and use it to wrap food. And you can actually make these yourself by coating squares of fabric with melted beeswax. And that kind of how to is another thing that you'll easily find online as a really fun alternative way to wrap us more present.

You can also be creative with your stationery, you know recycling old envelopes,shopping bags collaging onto them with old Christmas cards, tape stamps, all those kinds of things. If you are using ribbon, it's really great to be generous with it because that makes it a lot easier for the recipient to reuse it on presents in the future. And then of course, if you're mailing it to someone to reuse packaging material wherever possible. There's a few ideas and it can

be really fun. You don't have to think of reducing waste as a chore. It can really challenge you to be creative. And did you know that actually, research shows people value a gift more highly if it's wrapped carefully and beautifully. So a little bit more attention to the wrapping means that actually you can spend less on the gift and have the same effect and the wrapping is a joy. Well Mr. K wouldn't agree with that and but

my daughters would. I'm training them up nicely and they're very good at wrapping presents now. So I hope you enjoy that part of the process thinking about the gifts and wrapping them with love to show people that you really care. OK, so it's time for our Get Ahead Tips: things to do this week. Finalise your budget for gifts and everything else. 'Budget' is such a yucky word for a lot of people, but it really makes a

difference. And then talking about gifts as we have been, plan whether to give, what to give, how to give. Thinking about ways to economise, without feeling miserly. You know, if you've got children, can you team up with all the other parents and by a shared gift for their teacher instead of everyone spending, you know, 10 pounds each or whatever it is that crazy prices, gifts have got to these days for teachers.

Actually, if everyone chipped in just a couple of pounds, you can get a wonderful gift from all of you and the teacher doesn't end up with a load of stuff they don't need. For our children's teachers, we often club together to get vouchers for the local gardening centre because the teachers love gardening, that

kind of thing. Or maybe you could do Secret Santa with a group of friends instead of all buying each other something or instead of putting a financial limit on things - because some people don't like saying of you know, no more than five pounds for gift, whatever - perhaps you could choose a style of present light this year, we're only giving books between friends for example, a low cost but thoughtful present, or maybe something handmade, something to think about this week.

And then think about the bits and pieces that you might need to make things work over Christmas. This is very practical one spare batteries, wide silver foil if you can be roasting a turkey, crockery, corkscrews, and cutlery, chairs for your guests, those kinds of things. If you don't have them, if you can't borrow them, the Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales a really good time to buy anything that you're going to need.

And if you're gonna be making your own Christmas crackers, which is so much fun, now's a great time to order cracker snaps, because they often sell out come late December, and start saving toilet rolls to make them. And if you don't know how to make your Christmas crackers, and have a quick Google or search on YouTube, because there's loads of how to videos out there super easy and really fun. This is also a great time to do regular check of things that might need attention around your

house. Check your smoke alarms, check the oil in your car and the antifreeze levels, check your medicine cabinet, make sure your medicines are in date, those kinds of things. It's really good to get into the rhythm of doing that every year. Obviously some of those things need doing more frequently, but this is a good marker in the year to do that.

And then think about what you might like to treat yourself to this year, perhaps time doing something you love or an investment in something that you want to learn about, or something you care about. And then very specifically, here in the UK Friday, 4th December is the last day for Christmas post to Australia and New Zealand and wherever else in the world you are worth checking in with the postal service to find out last dates for Christmas posting. So that's it from me this week.

I'll be back next week with a very special episode exploring the question To Gather or Not To Gather?, which is indeed the question this year. Remember to subscribe to get the next episode as soon as it drops. And come and share your festive preparations and reflections with me over on Instagram @BethKempton.Until then, take good care. You've been listening to The Calm Christmas Podcast with me, Beth Kempton. For more

inspiration and ideas. cosy up with a copy of my book, Calm Christmas and Happy New Year: A little book of festive joy. It's available now from all good bookshops or listen to the audiobook read by me. Wishing you a calm Christmas and Happy New Year.