Practical Stocking Fillers for Christmas 2021

 **Collaborative Post**

Christmas is a magical time of year – but it can also be an incredibly wasteful one, with £700 million spent yearly on unwanted Christmas gifts, and an astonishing £42 million worth of gifts going straight to landfill. So how can you consciously engage with Christmas in a less wasteful way? 

The first port of call could well be the stocking fillers. Once the realm of plastic toys and single-use packaging, stocking fillers are seeing a sustainable revolution; great-value sacks and stockings like those available from Card Factory can be re-used again and again, and there is a wide array of practical gifts with which we can fill them, and reduce our wasteful consumption all at once. Here are just five ideas for practical stocking fillers this year. 

Clothing 

 

We’re all familiar with the kinds of tantrums that especially younger children can pull, when they excitedly descend upon the foot of the Christmas Tree on the big morning, only to discover the dreaded ‘soft present’. Thankfully, the stocking can mitigate this behaviour while simultaneously giving you the opportunity to gift useful items your children will eventually thank you for. Socks and gloves are an excellent choice for stockings, and the brighter the better. 

 

Toiletries 

 

If you’re stuck for the little things to gift to older loved ones in your group, toiletries are always a great bet for a thoughtful and practical gift. With electric toothbrushes ever more prevalent, and replacement heads somewhat more expensive than regular toothbrushes, a gift of replacement toothbrush heads would be a thoughtful gift – reducing expenses elsewhere in the year, and sure to be used by the recipient. Alternatively, you could go down the pamper route and invest in a couple of bath bombs or shower bars – sustainable bathing options with a hint of luxury attached. 

 

Stationery 

 

You cannot go wrong with stationery, whatever the age. Younger folk will love gel pens, crayons and colouring books, while the adults of the family will find notebooks, planners and pens a useful gift for the coming year. You can also branch out into novelty items, with shaped desk tidys and pen pots. 

 

Chocolates, Sweets and Nibbles 

 

While not the most practical of gifts, chocolates and sweets are the easiest way into the hearts of your loved ones – they’re easy to pick out according to taste, relatively inexpensive and have the added bonus of saving the recipients money on treats over the festive period. For the younger ones with a sweeter tooth, you might think to invest in a healthier kind of nibble, such as the ever-popular yoghurt-coated raisins. 

 

DIY Gifts 

 

Perhaps the most practical and sustainable way for you to give gifts for stockings could be in the making of them yourself! There’s something uniquely special about receiving something hand- or home-made, and something very memorable about it too. A large batch of homemade jam goes a long way to gifting wider family, while biscuits such as gingerbread men are easy and economical to make. Bonus points for reusing jars or avoiding plastics in packaging! 

Do you have stockings in your household and if so what kind of things do you like to fill them with, or what do you love finding in yours? Let me know in the comments below. 

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