No Gift Horses Here: Greener Holiday Wrapping Paper & Cards

The holidays may be the most wonderful time of the year. But it's also the most wasteful time of the year. Not Scrooge. But the waste generated during the holidays goes up by around 23 to 25%. Oh, so the year. So we're buying gifts, we're wrapping those gifts. We're buying bigger meals, we're decorating our homes, we're sending holiday cards. And about that wrapping paper. Oh, no. between 40 to 50% of our world's industrial logging is used to make paper. And I found a local government source in Oregon that said that about half of paper is consumed for single use decorating or rapping. Half, half. Holy cow. I find that hard to believe I was it was like government source. I'm like, I think I believe you. Oh my gosh. So let's explore how to have a more sustainable holiday season. Do eco friendly wrapping paper and greeting cards exist? We'll find out. Welcome to greening up my act. Okay, wow, that was really good. I had I never thought of this as an issue before. Hi, Tiffany. Hi, cat. My goodness. Either, you know, I don't think it's being a scrooge to have a mindful holiday season. It is something that we just kind of throw caution to the wind as part of the holidays just like it's Christmas, you know? Yeah. eat too much. drink too much. The bad trash. Yeah. So, okay. Can we do the excess without excessively damaging the ecosystem in which we live? Yeah, we're gonna find out or sort of. Okay. Yeah, we're gonna have thoughts on it. And I'm curious to know your thoughts too, by first my sources. So I looked into wrapping paper and greeting cards specifically. And the New York Times had an article on wrapping paper. I used going zero waste.com. And then WBUR is like, I think it's a local radio station. Yeah. Here and now. I think it was. Why can't I think of the word? It's public radio. It's a public radio show. I have a show. Yeah. It's a show there. The word was show. Okay. I don't really know them. So I'm like, Okay, I've definitely listen to hear it now. Okay, in my PR station, are they Public Radio International? Are they have no way they're produced by one of those public radio programming? Okay. Yeah. They Yeah, they had some good tips on creating a more sustainable holiday season. And there was this. I looked kind of all over the place for, I don't know, stats on wrapping paper specifically. And the best one I could find was wildlife and countryside link, which is a hole one hole. Wow, that's a URL. Okay. And it will WC L. But it's also from the UK. And I mentioned in one of the previous episodes that it's always the UK, like UK cares about the stuff so much more. And so they look at the UK, but it's hard to translate that, but they did have some interesting stats. And then I looked@upstate.edu on paper waste. The Oregon Environmental Council, which I mentioned, and Greenpeace had less waste wrapping paper options. Two of which actually, I don't know if these were in this article, but two less waste wrapping paper options that I looked into are called rapidly and Shiki wrap. I looked at their websites. Yep. And then zero waste card ideas from trash is for Tossers, which I love it's very UK. Yes, yes, that's cheeky, so much and then brightly has had a really useful blog on greeting card waste. So let's start with wrapping paper. Okay. Yes. 88 square kilometers of wrapping paper are likely to be used in the UK this year, which is 34 square miles. Okay, that's and that's in the UK. And that's only the UK. Okay. Okay, UK. Okay. You gay is just you. I'm going to look up the population of the Okay, while you go, yeah, so we can compare. Yeah, we can maybe multiply, and that's gonna be more for. I was gonna say people in the UK are much more conscious of Okay, so 67.3 3 million people in the UK. Hmm. And we have 300 million. God. So times. So 34 square miles times five. Yeah, at least. Yeah. It's more. It's a lot more. Yeah, it's more. And one of the big problems is that many types of wrapping paper can't be recycled. So glitter is forever. Yes. Anything with glitter, anything that's metallic or shiny that has foil all of Christmas? Yeah, it really is like, none of those can be recycled. And so because of that, I wanted to find options. So like, what are the other options? And Greenpeace, I really liked this quote. And I think they took it from somewhere. But the most sustainable item is the one that already exists. So if you're going to be wrapping presents, you could look into this tradition. It's a Japanese tradition, called Furoshiki. Wrapping. Yes, you know about it. It's Yes. Oh, it's a folding technique. And you use fabric and this. This website that I found with it had like, Oh, my God, like probably 40 different ways you could fold the fabric. Oh, I thought that was it was so cool. Have you ever done it? I've never done it. No, I know. I've seen it. For sure. I know what a great idea. I hadn't. I didn't even consider that. Yeah, I hadn't either. And Greenpeace pointed out like use what you already have, as far as fabric don't go out buying new fabric. So those were three. Yeah, fast fashion. Maybe this year, instead of giving your you know, stained t shirt to Goodwill and hoping they sell it, which they won't. And it'll end up in the river in Ghana. Huh? Yeah, cut it up. wrap presents in it. That's it. Yeah. How to cute like ribbon. Yeah. I like it. I don't know how much the receiver would like it. You know what you can talk to them about, like, I saved five trees. You know, they're wrapping your and you can. So one thing my sister and I are, we've been sending each other this box back and forth for our birthdays. I got my best friend bought me a cake for my 40th birthday. There's some birthday in it. And when you open it, a bunch of butterflies flew out. Oh my gosh. I just stuffed all the butterflies again girls or something. Oh, and a movie anyway. Anyway, I mean, it's it was cute. And so I just put my sister's present in there. And then she sent it back this year. So we're just sending each other the packaging back and forth. It's great. I love that. That's really smart. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It wouldn't be very minimalist, but that's fine. Well, just kidding. Thanks. I don't mind not being a minimalist. Right. Um, we had a whole episode on minimalism if you missed that, so yeah, it's not even minimalism. That's a problem. It's an you'll have to listen to it. Yes. I don't two guys. So yeah, I don't mind not being part of that cult. Or that label. Yeah, yeah. So I'm fine with that. Yeah. So I found one. And this was in the New York Times go fabricated figure. I feel like the New York Times they they know their audience, but it's very annoying, because your audience is very rich. So yeah, yep. They pretend it's not I think but it is. So they suggested the Shiki wrap, which is basically like a consumable version of Furoshiki. Wrapping, right? Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's like a play on the name. Okay. And they say on their website, it, you can wrap in seconds, no tape needed. All this stuff, like skip the scissors made to be reused again and again, and all this stuff. So it's basically a piece of fabric, I don't know, although I didn't look into all that much about it. But it's basically a piece of fabric that is sort of designed to be used as wrapping paper. Okay. And the problem is that it is insanely expensive. So one large wrap is 1699. I think it's almost 17 bucks. So imagine Buying something for somebody and then be like, Okay, on top of that price, I have to spend $17 More just wrap it. Yikes. I am a little confused. Because Are you supposed to take the wrapping back or? Thanks. So I'm just gonna, or you do it Mr. Naidu and you send it back and forth, but like that's the thing. Yeah, if you're giving it away to a friend, it would be awkward to be like, Yeah, I mean, it's either a good friend doesn't matter. But if it's somebody who's like, kind of an acquaintance, giving that away to someone, you'd be like, can I actually life savings on that? Might might, I'm going to use it as a handkerchief, I promise. Yeah. So it's like, if you can just get it back and reuse it for life. That's not a bad price. But I don't know how realistic that is. You need to do your your calculations on how many times you'd have to use it for it to equal the price of an ad eights and tube of, you know, paper from right to its lifecycle calculation from Yeah, exactly. And that dimension, it's a new product, you know, you're still it's still Yeah, again, it's produced you're not, yeah, you're still you're still adding to the carbon footprint of consumerism. So yeah. And so then, so if you're going to do the fabric thing, which I really like, I would just use something you already have. I have some really cute fabrics actually. Or thrift something and just kind of be a little bit creative with it. And then I looked up I saw some stuff about biodegradable gift wrap and I was like, What the heck is okay, I was gonna just biodegradable as green Hui word, as we all know anything is biodegradable with enough heat added to it. So yes, glass is technically biodegradable. Yes, bones are technically biodegradable. severes But yes, but I will say I was actually pleasantly surprised by this company that I found. So biodegradable giftwrap is basically recyclable, and it doesn't contain plastic. So like, theoretically, you could like compost it, or what? Like you could you could compost it in your backyard. And I found this company called rapidly. W ra PBIL. Why? I was I went into it highly skeptical. And they kind of won me over for some reason. I don't know if it's just like the papers. So cute. But I liked a couple. Yeah, it's really cute. But I liked a couple things about it. Because one it's they use recycled paper. And their paper is plastic free. So it's recyclable and compostable. It's manufactured in Washington State, which I appreciate Oh, yeah. locally. I mean, in the United States is nice. Yeah. And they worked with global illustrators. So like artists actually create the designs on their fat on their paper. Okay. I like that, too. Yeah. And they have reversible patterns. So there's a pattern on both sides. So you can kind of like, pick and choose, which I appreciate because I feel like if you order Christmas paper, there's only one time of year you can use that. But maybe it's a little bit if it's reversible. Like maybe it's more user friendly. Yeah. For the rest of the year. Yeah. And then it's plastic free packaging without the inner tube. So they don't have like the big two, which I guess is a waste. And the cost isn't too bad. I guess I'm trying to think what a regular tube of like a buck. I mean, seriously, you can get it. That's true. But but if you get the really cheap ones, it's literally like a foot like one squirt. Yeah, you're like, dang, I already had tears. Like even Yes. You're trying to rush the president it tears. Yeah. So it's like, all right, right. So three sheets, which they have the sizing, I didn't write the sizing down. But I think there were like, three pretty big, pretty good size sheets, cost$10.80. So I don't think it's paying an artist. Right? I don't think it's the cheapest option. But I think if you feel the need to use gift wrap, this could be a really good option. And the reviews are really good. So people like yeah, I was kind of like one over by them. If If you must use paper, but some other options that I've actually used in the past were newspaper so I had saved up when I had a newspaper subscription that I share at home we had like a subscription and so I saved the comics. Yes, that's no, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Took like some forward thinking but it was really cute. Really? That's a classic. Yeah, I think I think newspapers are great. I mean, just you're all weekly, you know, right from your neighborhood that they have fun covers, right Yeah, yeah. And this is kind of funny. Last year, this is my own addition but paper bags. So like, last year, I used paper bags or two years ago. And I kind of like ran out of paper bags. Because I like I don't know, I'm cheap and I don't want to buy new shit, but it looked terrible. Like I will say, I felt almost like embarrassed to give these as gifts to people, but luckily was just my family. And I was like, Oh, who cares? But you know, just paper bags, like from the grocery store. I just turn them inside out. Yeah, mine had a few holes, but it's fine. Well, then you can like my decorated them. Yeah, you can like draw on them. My sister used to use she, they turned cereal boxes inside out to boxes. Yeah, that's really smart. Yeah. Yeah. And then you can make them really pretty with like a piece of twine and some rosemary if you really want to get Yeah. Or Holly. It being the holidays. Right. And so yeah, and then the next year, I was so embarrassed that I got craft paper. Yeah, the good thing about craft paper is that it's not bleached. A lot of people say like, craft paper is eco friendly. It's so fronthaul sustainable. And I'm like, Well, I mean, it's still frickin paper. I know, you're still tearing down a forest for it. Yeah. And it's helpful because it is recyclable, but who the person on the other end has to recycle it. So yeah, that's the thing. You have to trust that the Yeah, yeah. And that's the problem with all this really. But yeah, um, and you can also use fabric but like a tea towel, which is really cute. Because somebody cannot use that. That's definitely make make the wrapping part of the gift. Yes. Yeah. I love it. I've definitely done that. Yeah. Yeah. And similarly, you can reuse like tins like cookie tins or jars. You said that you that? You did? Yeah. We'll have to save some of that for the gift episode. But yeah, for sure. You said you gave people homemade. Oh, wait, I remember spice mix. Yeah, yeah, it was Yeah. Turmeric. Yeah. Yes. And then you can also use string or paper washi tape instead of plastic tape aside, good to know about I don't know about. I gotta look up Washington. Because that's my bit. I, to be honest, didn't realize it was made of paper. So, yeah, it's really cute to sew onto greeting cards, okay. So, a pretty much everybody linked to this study on Stanford University's website that I could not find. I think they took it down. They're like, it's too popular. Yeah, but if you did it, but okay. I don't know. I don't know. Or I think they may have just updated their website and like, you know, links get lost, right? Yeah, it's the university. You have turnover every four years. Right. And but they say that 2.6 5 billion Christmas cards are sold each year in the United States. That could fill a football field. 10 stories high. No, don't take my Christmas cards from me. I have one sitting right here. already. Oh, I I buy a bunch from artists when I go out. Oh, and send them to my and so I just have extras all the time. Yeah. I'm not taking anything from you. Okay. Okay. So the UK said that. Well, the UK uses a staggering 30 300,000 tons of card packaging like precise, which is funny. They were equated it to the weight of 2 million reindeer. I would say Americans will use anything with the metric system to measure but this is the UK so they're they're the ones right? Okay. Okay, it's holidays. And then a study conducted by the UK is Exeter University found that sending one card produces about 140 grams or point three pounds of carbon dioxide. And the US in the US we mail around 1.3 billion holiday cards per year cheese, which is the same amount of co2 emissions as charging 22 billion smartphones or 22,000 homes energy use for one year. Wow. Isn't it crazy? Yeah, mailing is a problem and yet we all get everything mailed to us. But yeah, anyway. So That's that. Wow. Okay, good tonight. Like I said, I don't want to be a scrooge. But Facts are facts now. So I looked at some other options. So if you don't feel, you know, that hits you hard and you're like, shoot, maybe I shouldn't send Christmas cards, you have the option of virtual cards. Which to be honest, I'm not a Christmas card person. Okay? Not send them scratch my list sorry. That's hilarious. You gotta love the idea of virtual cards. Although I don't know you'd have to make an exception for like grandma and grandpa. But yeah, that's it. i Yeah. I hate you hate it. You hate. I hate virtual cards. I hate virtual cards. I mean, I don't love them. But yeah, I mean, I love a paper card. And I love sending stuff in the mail. I just I can't do I haven't done the Christmas card thing in a long time. I just takes time is full. Yeah. It's like way too much. Work. Well, and then you get one back. Right? Yeah, it gets Christmas cards and then doesn't send Well, last year I I was really bad about it. Last year, I only sent out like, a few. I used to have like, quite a list and I would handwrite all of them. And that's last year I slacked. I mean hey, don't feel guilty. Dude. I don't do it every any years. I mean, apparently the thanks me. Yeah, exactly. And also, I feel like people don't notice when you don't send them but maybe I'm making that up people. I definitely got cards, cards from people who I used to send them to, and I felt very bad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, to the Taylor family. I love you. And I love pictures of your children. Oops. Oh, sorry. I don't know if I send something if I send a card. I'm never expecting it. When I'm not like waiting around. Like how dare they not send me I don't keep up. I don't keep a list of people who seem like a tally. Like who did Thanksgiving next year. Yeah, right. No one would come. Okay, another option, which you may also hate, and it could be impossible. I don't hate these options. All right. But it could be impossible in terms of time, but like a phone call or text instead of hey, that is kind of good. Yes, that's an option. I did find one. That was kind of cool. And it's a plantable gift card. Okay. Yes. I like that. Yes. So it basically is paper that comes with wildflower seeds inside of it so the person can plant it. And it has seeds like the one that I found has seeds like Black Eyed Susan snapdragons English daisies. So super cute. I'm really into flowers right now. I'm holding one right now. You're holding a plantable gift card right now. Yeah. What? It's not it wasn't a gift card. It was for my ex husband's memorial service. Oh my god, they handed these out. And I haven't planted it yet. It's just sitting on my desk here. That's interesting. That is the other thing you have to kind of put that on the other person. Yeah. What a nice idea. That is lovely. I love it. Yeah, that's funny. I was just looking at so interesting. That's like such crazy timing, because I've never heard of these before. I hadn't considered it as a Christian, that's a really great idea. You can actually probably make your own. I was thinking the same thing, or even just like, get bulk seeds. And like, have a little paper envelope with them. And that you know, you don't have to like make a whole card if you don't feel like it. But yeah, I mean, but, uh, because papers really easy to make. Well, that is true. Yeah. Like you just throw it in the blender with some water basically. And then you could just put the seeds in it and leave it out to dry. Oh, man, if you could use like your old like office paper that you were going to recycle. I have a whole thing of shredding shredding here that I Yes. Oh, I love this. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like kind of a project. But if you'd like yeah, I was gonna say this is something St. Nancy would do. Exactly. So she probably already has. Let's see. Yeah. Yeah, but, Nancy. Yeah, she's our, our patron saint of green living. Also from the UK, I should point out but she is yeah, go figure. Yeah, so it just making us all look like assholes. Yes, it's fine. And so it comes. This one that I found comes with a paper envelope and it's made from 100% recycled material, which I appreciated. Yeah. And they do cost $3.50 per card. No one's looking at Jada be choosy about who you send them to. Yes. So they're definitely more expensive if you're sending out a bunch, because I found like, you can get 18, five by seven cards from Walmart for like 11 bucks. Yeah. And that would be that many cards would be $63 for the printable version. So I do think making your own might be a great option. I kind of love this. Everyone, you're getting my shredded paper checks? What? Relax in there. So you can Yeah, right over it. Just Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Yeah, or aside from that you could shop for recycled paper, if you really want to use regular greeting cards. And you could also make your own, like we said, or just don't send them and I know that's sacrilegious to some people, but it's option. i Yeah, abstaining. is an option. Yeah. What was it reject the reuse, reduce, reuse, recycle needs like reject in there? Yes. No, buy nothing group. I think the point nothing movement was saying like, we need a little we need to reject an opt out button. Yeah. Yeah. Which is absolutely true. It doesn't have to be this but in our lives in general. So yeah. Um, and this was something we talked about just before we started recording, but, and I didn't have it in my notes, but I'm glad you brought it up about Christmas trees. What was it you're gonna say? About Christmas trees? Yes. Okay. So I have a friend who works for the Forest Service. And I think you would have done actually more research and I was just thinking about it, she used to take folks into the woods, she does forest management. And they do have to cut down trees to keep a tree to keep forests in good conditions. And so she would go out and cut down Christmas trees with our friends. And it was actually not a Christmas tree farm. But, you know, good, good for the forests to cut down a tree or two, or, you know, five or six. So, yeah, and I just randomly had done research on it, because I was gonna write an article about it, and it never got published. I did get paid for it, but it's fine. And it's the coolest thing, because you can go not every US National Forest participates, but you can go to their website and find one that does. And you pay like, between I think it was like five and 20 bucks. So it's really affordable. And you do have to go and like cut down your own tree and, you know, carry it home, carry it home and like do all the hullabaloo but it's not like you have to hike five miles in or anything. You're just kind of like parking. And then I think yeah, it's close. I mean, they walk like 100 feet, and maybe they make it easy. And it's a family event. Yeah. And it just seems so like Grizz baldy. Yeah, way. I love the good parts of the Griswolds. Yeah. And I looked, I'm in Maryland, and I looked and I didn't have anything closer than like three hours away. So okay, that's true. Yeah, so but I think it's much more free. Much, much more common in the west coast. So yeah, New Mexico is definitely yeah. Available. Yeah. I wonder about Texas. I mean, yeah, I don't do a live Christmas tree. Because I don't either. Mostly laziness. And yeah. cheapness. They're not cheap. No, they're not. I didn't have any books. I will say there are sustainable ways to get rid of them. I mean, a lot of like, there's Christmas tree pickup in my neighborhood, but you can like pig sanctuaries, pigs. Pigs will eat them. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Ours, the last one that we got is still sitting in our shed, it's probably a fire hazard at this point. It's just I was to at least two years ago, a friend of mine said he one time put. He was like, Oh, my Christmas tree and he was like, dry of course. And he put it in his fire pit and he lit it and he was like, it went up fast. And it was terrifying. It was like a six foot tree just on fire. And I was like yeah, good. caught them up before you burn them if you're gonna do that, but Oh, yeah. Joey was like he just hasn't done it yet. Because he's so afraid. And of course we would cut it up but yeah, like that drives that SAP doesn't. Oh my gosh, yeah. Okay, on to my granola rating, okay. A granola rating. For those of you who are new is every episode we rate products or systems that we review from one to five granolas and obviously If you want your granola to be super crunchy, so five is break your tooth off because it's so crunchy and one is soggy. Or if it's really bad, it's gonna be a zero which is waterlogged. Is that? Yeah, I'm always like sodden. And you're like waterlogged cat like Yes. Right? So, yes, so on this scale this granola scale, I'm going to say, I have to sort of, I'm just going to lump them all together, like all of these like eco supposedly eco friendly products for the holidays, I have to give it a sticky, okay, because which is two to five, because the marketing around these products for the most part, not all of them, but the most of it sucked. So I will say like, there were so many times where I saw marketing, early sight words like or phrases like zero waste, eco friendly, no harm to the earth, save the Earth, guilt free. And I hated all of Hui Hui Hui Hui Hui, yes. And I hate all of them. Because it's like, nothing is zero waste. Nothing that I mentioned was zero waste. I don't know how you could think of zero waste for any of these things. Nothing's eco friendly. Because everything is you can have eco friendly or products, but nothing is good. Nothing that we create is good for the Earth. Except compost, okay, whatever. Yeah. Everything is hard to the earth, we're not saving the Earth by doing this, we're saving ourselves, the earth is going to be just fine. It's going to take a long time, but we won't be here if you want. And guilt free is just the most annoying thing. So I just couldn't, I just it just bothered me so much. And the bottom line is that all of these things are truly luxuries. So a lot of the products that we talk about are like toothpaste or I don't know, like period products. Yes, free products cleaners, toilet paper, like stuff that we have, like, theoretically have to have are much more necessary than like wrapping paper. And like yes, it's a joyful part of life and it's a has a religious connotation, but there's not a great way to make these things truly sustainable. They're all extras in life. And you can do it like way smarter and way better, but to call it sustainable is a big stretch. So okay, i My hope is that this is my opinion, but my hope is like knowing all of this will help us not fit into that statistic of being one quarter more wasteful during the holiday season. So I think it's a good theme to be like grateful for what you have. Yes. Yes. Okay, I'm not going to you know, I was just thinking about what my Instagram posts for this is going to be I'm just going to put the Grinches face but there's again I think the opt out button you know, we do all these traditions without thinking about them. It's like Oh, I gotta wrap a present Yeah, right i i wrap a present it looks like a T Rex got let loose on a you know, like I can't wrap my mother is a genius at rapping I did not inherit that from her. I cannot wrap a present to save my life so with its tiny little arms Yeah, just like throwing itself at the shoe ever want to laugh think either of a T Rex making its bed or trying to rub a Christmas present. Those are your options for laughing That's the holiday flair for it, but I love it. Yeah, I can't wrap it present. So to me opting out of wrapping is like Yeah, right. Do love Christmas cards, but I do like the idea of something useful. I like the idea of planting something I really like the idea of making my own paper because I have all this shredded paper right or I could I could try to last year's Christmas cards, you know? Yeah. And and that would be great. It sounds really fun actually. Yeah. What a fun activity if I can with the tools aren't too much but yeah, I think I think this could be fun. So you've inspired me again I don't I it is like being No. If you are a Grinch your heart has grown three times you have made my heart grow three times. Oh good. Yes. Yeah, yeah, cuz I think you can have traditions but you don't have to have all the shit. Yeah, it goes with it in my opinion. And like we were originally going to talk also about holiday decor, but I decided not to include that. But it's like whole boy, could you talk a lot about holiday decor? You know? Yeah, I don't actually decorate. And maybe sometimes I'll go out and pick some pine branches from this, you know, some trees that, but that's kind of all I do. And I throw some, we barely have ornament. This is kind of sad. I don't know, actually, each year, we have a tradition of making an ornament. So it's just taking us a really long time to decorate our tree. And we have some like my mom gave me some a couple years ago and whatnot. But, um, but yeah, we don't have a star because we don't have one. And yeah, it's just like, it's kind of it's fun. It's so it is a tradition, but it doesn't really revolve around the fact that we have a ton of decorations are what Right? Um, all right. I love Christmas decor. But yeah, like, I feel bad buying buying it. You know, I've Yeah, the lights that I hung around my house for years. I worked in a hospital system, and we cleaned out all of their holiday decor and they had functioning lights, they're just gonna throw away and that was what I took. I took cool strings of colored lights. And that was nice. But I do light. I'm a big lights fan. Huge lights fan. I will always my my. I put up Halloween decorations. And I put up Christmas decorations. And I want to do Valentine's Day decorations. But I don't want to have boxes and boxes of plastic crap. You know, I wish we could have holiday lights all year round. And it wouldn't look weird or being lazy. I just loved them so much. Yeah, I think they're so festive and nice. I agree. So but yeah, there are ways like we can be thoughtful about it. And not just, yeah, you just like they're throwing them away. And you're like, Please can I have Yeah, I need holiday lights. Yeah. And I didn't want to buy any so yeah, I've I'm a big fan of that. I I really, you're onto something about reusing paper. I really liked that idea. Yes. Cool. Well, if we do end up doing that, we will post it and unless it's an extreme failure. Well, even if I think that would almost be better. Be more entertaining. You're right. This is why you go for the sales. Yeah, right. Number one, I'm clumsy, so don't do what I do. But it did. Well, I'm excited for Yay. I'm kind of bummed about what next week is because it's not holiday themed. I feel like we did this out of order. And should be we're gonna Well I wanted to like I think we wanted to give time, people time. Yeah, I mean, you're gonna need six weeks to Christmas cards. Yeah. We need time for that pay for that a homemade paper. I don't. I'd say I don't celebrate Christmas. I celebrate all of the midwinter holidays. So it's like Buddha Diwali. Ma Saturnalia. Love it. That's awesome. I threw Buddha in there. I don't know why. But it's Kwanzaa, Diwali, which is not always around Christmas. But is it the Indian Light Festival, the Hindu Light Festival? Kwanzaa, Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Saturnalia. What is that Saturnalia is? The ancient Roman festival like Christmas is actually took over for so. Wow, very cool. Yeah. I feel like they'll just be Saturnalia taken in there too. But while Saturnalia is pagan for sure. Ah, okay, gotcha. Well, okay, the thing that the holiday I actually celebrate this is when speaking of the Grinch, and I can share this this is my every year, I make gingerbread cookies, and I mole cider and wine. And we watch the Grinch love and we raise money for charity. Oh my gosh, Grinch fest, so do Grinch fest. And that was started by my my good friend and from college, Glenn Goodman, who does not listen to podcasts. So he'll never hit us. But we'll have you going. And he started it when we were sophomores in college. And I've just been doing it ever since. Yeah. So Grinch fest is my holiday. Yeah. And also one thing i i would love to do, I don't know if it'll ever fly with my family. But like, I would love to volunteer instead of giving gifts like I think they are really meaningful. But yeah, who knows? We'll see your food bank or in addition to you know, yeah, I mean, I I do love. I love gift giving. It's one of my love languages. I just I just, I don't like compulsory gift giving. But I love when something is exactly right for someone. Yes. That's my favorite thing saying. But I like to give really practical gifts. Yes. And it's funny because people are always like, Whoa, yeah, no, I needed this. But I still love it. I'm like, yeah, so glad you like your really fancy ice scraper. For me, it was I hope you like your reusable menstrual cup. Yes, exactly. Which I don't think anyone appreciated at the time but yeah, well, you never know. Yeah, maybe there came around. Yeah. But yeah, I've I Yeah. meaningful things. So yes, exactly. I love it. Well, you've, you've brought up the holiday spirit in me. Yay. I was so glad I was so afraid it would be the opposite. So oh no, we're glad. Yeah. Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you for listening. Yeah. Thanks, listeners. Yes. Like and Subscribe. That can be your holiday gift to us that that is eco friendly. Oh, yeah. And actually, the biggest the biggest gift to us would be if you download our episodes, which is kind of weird for some people. They don't like to do that. But, but if you're gonna be traveling for the holiday, yeah, feel like saving your data. Just download because yeah, those are a big deal for us. Yeah. It would help us know you're listening because we have no idea. Yeah, it's really podcasts are hard to track. But we don't do this for the listeners. We do this for the love. So, yes, holiday cheer. Our heart grew three times that. Cool. Well, thank you. Yep. Have a good night too. Okay, talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.