Hello, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays in advance. I am a super minimalist but I do love
love Christmas, and I also really like giving gifts that I know will help people with their
lives. So that's what today's video is about. I'm trying to focus on gifts that are ethically made,
sustainable, that will be used by the person, and that won't create clutter in their lives.
So whether you're wanting to give a minimalist gift to share your lifestyle with someone else,
or just simply to please a minimalist, this is the gift guide for you. I got a lovely comment asking
for suggestions for ethical gifts and minimalist gifts that aren't just your average experiences,
because just like Laura Luna said it can be quite stressful trying to fit something in
your calendar and you might not even like that experience in the first place. So what I prefer
to do is to give people real life experiences if you don't want to give a physical gift. And it's
really important it's not a ticket to a date, not like some voucher to go to a date, but a
real life date with the person you're giving the gift to. I think the best way by far to do this is
by asking your friend or family member a few weeks before the event like Christmas or their birthday,
if they want to meet you for a coffee or to go to the cinema or to go to an art exhibition.
Hopefully they say yes and when it comes to that date just arrive 10 minutes early and just get
the popcorn ready, or get the tickets and that will be your surprise gift for them. This way
your loved one gets to experience a wonderful gift and a surprise without having to have any physical
clutter in their life. It's also super sustainable since you're not adding more waste into the world,
and I think it's one of the best gifts that you can give to anyone. Number two is ethical
consumables and preferably food. The conventional beauty or gift baskets with food and marmalade or
makeup products, they often go unused, so I don't think they're a good idea. And they will just
create clutter and your friends or your loved one's life. Instead I think a DIY option is a
lot better. This is actually one of my favorite things to give to friends and loved ones because
I can create something that's 100 percent tailored to them and only cater to what exactly they like.
If you make a food basket that's very simple to fill with ethical teas or coffees or chocolate,
which is perfect for Christmas. Another tip is that if you know that they're already using a
product you can swap it for an ethical one. So say they use bar soap, just swap that bar soap
for an ethical bar soap and give that to them in their gift basket and I'm sure they will enjoy it.
And you'll help them to make a more sustainable choice. And I think for you know the person in
your family who already has everything they need, these two gift ideas are so good because you can
really make them personalized without necessarily adding clutter into their lives. Number three
is do it yourself. For one of my best friend's birthdays I made her a blueberry birthday cake
that took me two days to make with quite expensive ingredients, but I poured all my love into it and
we ate it together and it was a beautiful experience. Aother fun and I guess trendy
thing you can give someone that's extremely low waste is to just put one of your plant cuttings
in a pot that you've bought second hand, and then you have a basically low waste to zero waste gift
that you can give to someone else that they will also cherish and love. So I think there are so
many options and I think the DIY options that are normally suggested are not so good, and we end up
just giving stuff to our friends that we might not even keep for ourselves. So I think anything that
can be used and that's beautiful, but also anything that's natural and biodegradable,
is often a good way because you don't add clutter into their lives. For example, if you give someone
a plant cutting in a secondhand pot and they don't like it, it's really not the end of the world if
they give the secondhand pot back to charity and if the pot plant dies. So this is a great option
for a really sustainable gift. And number four is vintage or secondhand. Shopping second hand
for gifts is one of the best ways to give ethical, truly ethical gifts. Now secondhand might not be
fancy or special enough for your event, so then I definitely think you should go with vintage.
Giving vintage items for gifts I think is such an overlooked market because it would be one
of the most luxurious things that you can give to someone, and every piece also comes with a story.
You can buy extremely expensive vintage gifts, everything from designer clothes, to dresses, to
shoes, to jewelry, to furniture. So if you want to give someone a really really special sustainable
ethical and low waste gift, but you want it to be super fancy, then vintage is definitely my
best option for you. Gift number five would be in the charity section. Shis is a great gift I
think especially for the older generation, if you have grandparents. My grandparents definitely own
absolutely everything they might need. So one Christmas I just decided to swap and give them
charity gifts instead, and they absolutely loved it. But you can give a charity donation in someone
else's name and it is both ethical, sustainable and zero waste. And my last passive is give boring
gifts. I know in general it's a bit taboo to give practical and useful gifts, but these are actually
the best gifts that you can get. And I think the older we get the more we hopefully appreciate
these kind of gifts. If the person you know needs a new toothbrush, or a new kitchen cabinet,
or they are renovating a house and they need to paint, anything like this that is useful and
that actually will be used I think is a wonderful thoughtful gift, and a gift that really tells your
loved one that you care about them. I might be the Christmas grinch here, but as a last tip I really
want to ask you to not do such things as secret Santa, or like Secret gift giving or anything like
that, because it is just extremely wasteful and it just feeds into a vicious cycle about just giving
and giving stuff that doesn't last. If you have to do something like secret santa because your
family is crazy, or because of for your work or something like that, I highly suggest using
biodegradable things. So give things like tea, fancy marmalades and jams, locally made soaps,
anything that will actually be used. And I think these are the key points when it comes to ethical
and sustainable gift giving, the best thing is of course if you can give someone a gift that a,
isn't physical, or that isn't really a gift you know, like a physical item, but it's an item of
food or it's a plant or anything that's completely biodegradable. The next best option is to give
someone a gift that's locally, ethically and sustainably made. But even if you give someone the
most ethical gift in the world they might still not use it or appreciate it and then it will just
add clutter in their life, you'll have less money, and it'll just be feeding capitalism, right. So I
think the best way to have a sustainable Christmas is to try to see if you can get away from the
regular physical gift giving, and see what else you can give instead. One of my go-to gifts would
be to just buy a rattan basket from a secondhand store, and fill it with things that I believe in,
such as vegan chocolate or a fancy coffee creamer, that's vegan of course, dried flowers,
handmade soap. Anything that will actually add to that person's life, because at the end
of the day it's about the thought and about the presentation. I think we can make even the most
boring sustainable gifts look fun and special if we present them nicely, and I think that's really
the key to sustainable gift giving. I really hope these were in your average minimalist gift giving
ideas, and I hope you got some new ideas to be creative with what you give to your loved ones,
and I really hope that they will appreciate these gifts as much as I would do and as much
as the people I've given it to would do. There are obviously a few people were gift giving is a
bit harder. I would say for example teenagers used to be harder, but these days teenagers basically
dress like they're in the 90s, so secondhand shops would be a perfect idea for a teenager. Older
people it's obviously very easy I think, because they're often very grateful, have everything
they need, so things like charity gift giving, or even tea you can make your own tea mix for them,
I think it would be highly highly appreciated. And then for the really special gifts I really
do believe that vintage gift giving is by far the best gift. So I'm super happy that I could make
a gift guide where I didn't promote any single product, because I think that's super important.
Because at the end of the day any product that's being created has to be created right, it has to
be manufactured by people, it takes resources, and Christmas is already a time for over consumption
so the more we can lower our waste here the better. Thank you so much for watching this video,
as you can see I'm in my van. I've driven about 180 kilometers today so I'm a little bit tired,
but I'm super excited to show you guys the fully completed van/ I still have three things left that
I need to do so stay tuned for that and I'll see you next week. Bye and Merry Christmas!