Wrap It Up

Purchase gifts that don't have to be wrapped: tickets to concerts, museums, or sporting events, gift certificates, house plants, or even gifts of your own time. 

When giving oversized gifts like bicycles or CD racks, instead of wrapping them in paper, just tie a bow around them. 

Use gift bags, which the recipient can reuse.

Wrap gifts in old maps, newspapers, Sunday comics or fancy holiday gift bags. Kids' art work is a perfect wrapping for presents to proud grandparents. 

Use brown paper grocery bags to wrap small-to-medium size boxes that have to be mailed. 

Make the wrap a part of the gift: Putting cookies in a flower pot or hiding jewelry in a new pair of gloves will keep your gift under wraps and the "wrapping" out of the trash.

Did you know...if every family reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet?