Extraordinary and Unconventional Christmas Gifts Part 2

Extraordinary and Unconventional Christmas Gifts

This year we have had quite an unconventional Christmas.

The whole holiday season has been totally different for us compared to previous years. Everything changes when you have kids.

It’s funny to think that around this time last year, my wife and I were ringing in the new year in Las Vegas. Fast forward a year later and here we are spending New Year’s eve at home hoping the baby sleeps through the night. Darn those fireworks.

A few days ago, I wrote a post about how I gifted my parents a luxury hotel experience.

In this post, I’ll showcase some other unconventional Christmas gifts that my wife and I have given to people.

Overall, we try to give gifts that reflect our values. In addition to being relatively frugal and minimalist, my wife and I have values that are appreciably unconventional compared to the mainstream. We eat a whole food plant based vegan diet. As much as possible, we try to avoid environmental toxins. And while we can’t quite call ourselves zero waste environmentalists, we try our best to be good stewards of the planet.

Here are some of the gifts that reflect this…

 

A More Sustainable Christmas Tree

What’s Christmas without a Christmas tree?

Growing up, my parents would bring home a real six foot tall Christmas tree every year. I have fond memories of helping my mom decorate the tree with lights and ornaments.

When my wife and I first moved into our current home three years ago, we felt conflicted about the idea of having a Christmas tree. We didn’t like the idea of chopping down a beautiful tree just to have it displayed for a few weeks. While not friendly to the environment either, we ended up buying an artificial tree with the intention of using it for many years. The first two years we really enjoyed it!

This year, we didn’t take the tree out for display. Our baby is crawling everywhere and grabs everything in sight. If we set up our tree, she would probably knock it down and get hurt! (Baby proofing the house is perpetually a work in progress.)

So instead, my wife bought a potted Norfolk Island Pine tree as a gift to ourselves.

It looks very similar to a real traditional Christmas tree, but but smaller. And you don’t have to cut it down either!

As a potted house plant, it can grow year after year. We placed the Christmas tree plant on our counter where it is out of reach from our little rug rat.

My wife decorated it with dehydrated orange slices and beaded cranberries. We wanted to avoid plastic ornaments and give it a more natural / “zero waste” / DIY look.

 

Homemade, DIY, Non-toxic Holiday Candles

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, candles are usually a big part of the holiday tradition.

I didn’t know this before, but a lot of commercially sold scented candles can be toxic to our health and the environment.

In general, many candles are made of paraffin wax, which creates benzene (toxic and potentially carcinogenic) when burned.

Additionally, most scented candles contain “fragrance” to make them smell good. “Fragrance” often contains toxic synthetic chemicals, such as phthalates, that are known hormone disrupters that have developmental and reproductive toxic effects.

And finally, a lot of candles have lead-core wicks that emit unnecessary lead exposure (and potential toxicity) when burned.

Last year, my wife and I made some homemade, non-toxic holiday candles as gifts for friends and family.

As you can see from the picture above, instead of paraffin we used all natural coconut to make the candle wax. In place of “fragrance”, we infused the candle wax with eucalyptus essential oil which emits a woodsy holiday scent. And instead of a lead-core wick, we used a wick made from all natural hemp. All of these components are non-toxic and not associated with causing cancer or hormone disruption.

To make it even more environmentally friendly, we used repurposed glass jars that originally contained salsa. In fact, if you look closely at the finished candle on the upper left, you can still see the expiration date marked on the glass.

From salsa to non-toxic candle. What a transformation! And quite an unconventional Christmas gift too!

 

Healthy Food

Another holiday tradition is food. Usually unhealthy food. And lots of it!

My wife and I are unconventional in that we don’t use the holidays as an excuse to pig out on all the unhealthy foods we can eat. We try our best to promote healthy eating habits with our family, friends, and colleagues too.

The holidays presented a great opportunity for us to share our healthy (yet delicious) food to other people. For Christmas dinner, we organized a primarily vegetarian hot pot dinner that was low on refined sugar and added salt.

For my mom’s birthday a few days later, my wife and I prepared an even healthier meal. We made a completely whole food plant based brunch with no oil or sugar, and minimal salt. It included a tofu scramble, yogurt and fruit in an oatmeal cup, hash brown potatoes, fresh avocados and tomatoes, and broccoli salad.

Not only was brunch incredibly healthy and nutritious, it was also tasty and delicious.

While the picture doesn’t really do it justice, here’s what it all looked like combined in one plate…

In case anybody wants the recipes, I’ll list them below:

• Best Vegan Broccoli Salad by Hummus Sapien
• Tofu Scramble by Minimalist Baker

Making the hash browns was easy. The ingredients are: 2 pounds of hash brown (sliced potatoes), 1 cup finely diced onions, 1/2 cup cashews (raw), 3/4 cup water, 1 tablespoon seasoned salt, 1/2 tablespoons onion powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder. Add all ingredients EXCEPT the potatoes and onions to a high-speed blender (we have a Vitamix) and blend until smooth. Combine the mixture with the onions and hash browns then mix well. Next, spread it on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until the potatoes brown to your liking. There you have it, delicious hash brown potatoes!

For the oatmeal cups, the ingredients are: 1 banana, 1 cup of rolled oats, 2 table spoons of maple syrup, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Then spoon into a nonstick cupcake pan and spread it upward to form the shape of a cup. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, then bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Let cool and remove. Finally, put your favorite plant based yogurt (we used So Delicious vanilla coconut yogurt) and top with fruit. Then voila! Enjoy :).

Overall, bringing food is a great gift for the holidays. And bringing healthy, wholesome food is even better.

Our goal is to make healthy food more attractive in order to promote better eating habits among the people we love. A lot of my Instagram feed is devoted to making nutritious food look good!

It’s too bad that healthy food is considered unconventional. If it was the norm, more people would be healthier.

 

Final Thoughts

The holidays are all about giving.

Gift giving can definitely be a challenge. This is particularly true for frugal minimalists like ourselves.

However, giving gifts is a great opportunity to not only express your creativity, but to also promote the values you believe in.

In addition to spending money according to our values, we should also give gifts in a way that align with our values too.

My wife and I have values that can be considered unconventional compared to many mainstream traditions. That’s why for the past few years, we have given people unconventional Christmas gifts.

As 2018 comes to a close, I hope everybody has a wonderful 2019!