Think back to the nicest gift you’ve ever received. Consider how you could offer someone else that same emotional experience.

To avoid overconsumption, make a realistic budget and shopping list based on needs and your financial means, and stick to it. If you’re at risk of overspending, move your savings to an account that’s not easily accessible.

Gift things that already exist. For example, find presents at second-hand or reuse stores, make something at home from what you have, or give a homemade preserve from your cellar.

Give something you made yourself. Again, consider which gift suits whom – someone might not wear wool socks but loves fabric tote bags, another wouldn’t wear earrings but would hang your handmade picture or clock on their wall, while someone else might not care for a trivet but would adore your homemade cream or candle.

Instead of items, gift emotions, shared time, or your personal time. For example: tickets to local cultural events, snow shoveling or babysitting services, a day hike, or a cozy winter evening with a campfire, food, and igloo building.

A great emotional gift can also be a photo to hang on the wall or assemble as a puzzle – a memory from a shared experience during the year. You might find a cool picture frame at a thrift store.

If you are buying gifts, choose things that are expected and needed – ask the recipient to write a letter to Santa and show it to you.

Let others know about your own small wishes too – write a “letter to Santa” and share it with your loved ones!

If someone truly doesn’t want anything and you still want to give a gift, donate in their name – choose a cause they care about, like children, animals, healthcare, education, refugees, or victims of violence. Make the donation personal – write it on a big gingerbread cookie, or design it as an ancient scroll or a fancy certificate.

When buying things, prefer high-quality, local, fair trade, and sustainably sourced products.

With edible or drinkable gifts, there’s a good chance they won’t go unused. Put your joy of giving into baked goods, buy cheese from a local artisan, make your own holiday schnapps, or roll truffles from fair-trade chocolate.

Use “Black Friday” not as a shopping spree, but as a savings opportunity. Plan ahead, decide what you or your loved ones actually need, and buy those items at the right time from the right place at a discount.

The best edible gift is one shared with good company. Use the money saved from the previous tip to host a cozy dinner with your closest friends.

Avoid extra wrapping paper that’s torn open and thrown away – it wastes both nature and money. First, maybe the gift doesn’t need any wrapping at all? If it does, use old newspapers, magazines, or wall calendars, and decorate them with drawings. Or reuse gift bags, shoeboxes, cookie tins, wallpaper scraps, etc., from home or work. A good bag or box can be reused again by the recipient.

A fabric bag also makes great packaging – and the recipient can actually use it. You might already have some at home, but if you sew one yourself from old jeans, bedding, a tablecloth, or a dress shirt, it becomes part of a very personal gift.

Avoid buying Christmas cards. If you want to send greetings to loved ones far away, make a card from materials you have at home – or better yet, take time for a (video)call and genuinely ask how they’re doing.

If over time you’ve received “useless gifts” you don’t know what to do with, bring them to the TalTech fair on December 2nd – maybe you’ll find something useful among someone else’s unwanted gifts.

At that same fair, you can buy and sell handmade items, reused goods, and clever gifts. Register as a seller here and come shop too!

Right after Christmas, start quietly noting down what your loved ones dream about. That way, it’ll be easier next year if they don’t write to Santa or say “I don’t really know what I want.”