Earlier in the month, we asked our friends a question. (Ok so by “friends” we mean you lovely people who are subscribers to our newsletter, but you are also our friends, right?)  

The question was: how do you make your Christmas FAIR for people, planet or the environment?

We LOVED the creativity and drew inspiration from all your answers. We feel very lucky to be sharing ideas from a  community of smart, thoughtful people who care about Fairtrade, just like us!. 

Here are some of our favourite ideas, straight from you: 

1. Plant cuttings/succulents grown in old jars are gifts that keep on giving 
2. One of my January tasks is to cut up the Christmas cards to make gift tags for the next Christmas.  
3. Forgoing gifts, Accepting experiences, Inspecting Fairtrade credentials and Recycling (see what they did there?!) 
4. I am picking pine branches/cuttings at my local Christmas tree shop. They trim the trees they sell and discard the branches. I grab them for free and enjoy the fresh Christmas tree smell without the guilt of a full-on tree. 
5. In my family, we give everyone a $10 food item gift to make a lovely hamper for them. 
6. Doing a reverse advent calendar with my 10-year-old daughter where each day we put food or an essential item into a box that we then donate to the city mission. 
7. We made our own Christmas tree out of wood offcuts from our local DIY store.  
8. We make edible presents each year and package them up in jars that we collect throughout the year.  
9. We make fabric bags as presents for people to use as shopping bags. 
10. This Christmas is all about ditching objects in favour of experiences for my loved ones – we’ve all spent way too much time cooped up at home so it’s time for some fun out and about in nature (Zealandia memberships for my Welly friends) and some non-home cooked food from our favourite restaurants (shout out to Jizo in Dunedin). 

Plus, many of you spoke about choosing Fairtrade for presents, especially when you’re doing your festive baking. Find out more about Fairtrade products. 

For more ideas, read our top five festive ideas and please keep your eyes peeled on our future newsletters because we plan to do more giveaways in the year ahead. 

Thank you all for your support this year. We wish you a peaceful and safe summer ahead.  

With love, 

Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand