Many are boycotting plastic filled Christmas Crackers this year, and making these far superior versions instead!

With more and more people wanting to cut their consumption down many are turning to recyclable / reusable items instead of one time use products, a perfect example is Christmas crackers, they’re known for being awful yet every year millions of people buy them to open them, laugh at how poor they’re and then throw the contents into the bin hours later…

So instead many are making their own, with superior gifts inside and/or most importantly making them using materials they’ve saved from the months prior to Christmas day and from items that they might be able to reuse again next year. Depending on how good you’re with being thrifty these can cost less than a box of crackers from the supermarkets and last much longer.

Photo from the superb thoroughlymoderngrandma.com guide

Things you will need:

• Snaps (Amazon | eBay)
• Toilet roll cardboard tubes or recycled card (These are great)
• Twine (Amazon)
• Scissors (these are our favourites)
• Tape (e.g. this packing tape)

• Wrapping paper (consider using old Christmas wrapping paper or Kraft paper)
• Some optional decorations (e.g. wooden ones, scrabble letters etc) or you could cut up some ‘festive’ plants from the garden and glue on?
• Some gifts (e.g. small drink bottles, some chocolates,
• A guide to follow (e.g. this superb one by Modern Grandma)

Things to remember:

• The main point of these is to try and reuse otherwise wasted materials
• The other point is to make something worth saving for next year, so you’re only throwing away parts of it
• Doing the above should save you money in the longterm, although the first year will probably cost you more

What are your favourite Christmas tricks?

Let us know in the comments below