No-buy Christmas: How to spoil loved ones without over spending

It was a classic Christmas gift set: shower gel, soap, and body lotion, and it had been in the charity shop for several years. We were pulling it out of the stock box to give it yet another go in front of the public, hoping maybe this year someone would buy it.

It probably cost between €10 and €15 when it was first purchased. The previous year it had been out for €4 so we knocked it down to €3 and joked about having to pack it away for another year if it didn't sell.

In January, we put it away again - along with all the other unsold sets. I worked at the charity the following year and it didn’t sell then either, not even for €2. The gift set has been on my mind as I’ve watched people do their Christmas shopping this year, putting near-identical gift sets in their shopping trolleys.

I thought about how many similar gift sets I’d been given and how they too invariably ended up being donated to charity. It’s made me reassess my ideas around the giving of gifts.

Perhaps it’s my fatigue with the endless consumerism of Christmas, or it’s a result of having to pack up my life and give away 90% of my belongings that’s made me reassess what’s important, but I feel I’m entering a post-gifts time in my life. They’ve lost their meaning to me.

The difference between want and need have become ever more apparent. I don’t need a gift to know that someone cares about me, I’d rather any kind of shared experience than a physical gift.

The majority of adults on my Christmas list are people who don’t need, or even necessarily want for anything. If they discover they need something, they buy it for themselves. Given the cost of living crisis and how many people in Ireland are struggling, it feels wrong to put pressure on people to spend what little money they have on me.

I’m not suggesting not giving gifts to children or those who are in need. I remember as a young lone parent being broke and alone and getting no present at all on Christmas morning. It was dire and awful. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Please heap gifts upon anyone struggling financially, it means so much when you’re in that situation.

If you’re looking for low or no-cost gifts to give people in your life here are some suggestions:

• Taking people’s kids off their hands for a few hours, even just to the park. That’s a huge gift to any parent.
• Cooking extra and dropping a meal to someone’s house.
• Suggesting a shared experience instead of a gift for each other - a coffee date, a movie together, a long beach walk.
• Offering to help with laundry, cleaning weeds off driveway, or cleaning outside windows. One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was when a friend offered to defrost my freezer for me!
• Offer to give an elderly relative a hand or foot massage, I used to do this with all my grandparents and great uncles and aunts. They loved it.
• Offer to do someone’s grocery shopping for them (my ex-boyfriend’s mum used to try and pay me to do her shopping she hated it so much)
• Host a games night. Instead of giving gifts, ask everyone to bring their favourite game.
• Invite people over to watch a cheesy Christmas movie and drink hot chocolate.
• Ask your loved one to volunteer with you. Spend a few hours together helping out a local charity or community group.