Santa Bags

Yes, I'm already posting about Christmas, but only to give you time to plan ahead! I really recommend giving this idea consideration! 

 

Two years ago we accidentally stumbled onto a new family tradition!

Santa Bags!

The women have always been out numbered by the men in my family, but since Mom passed - that is even more the case! As you can imagine - wrapping gifts is not exactly a priority of my dear Father, Brothers & Husband.

It seemed so silly to wrap up Johns gifts when he either knew exactly what I was getting him or had a pretty good idea. There's just something depressing about working hard to beautifully wrap a gift for yourself, and if you've seen my husbands wrapping skills, you'd understand. My Dad & Brothers would have me wrap all the gifts to everyone else & I'd open my gifts from them from plastic grocery bags...

Never-mind the lack of desire to wrap gifts {or the lack of talent in that department}, have you seen the prices of nice gift wrap!?! I couldn't believe it!! As it is, to wrap gifts that were being exchanged with friends and members of extended family - we spent about $30 in wrapping supplies two years ago.  Read: $30 to buy Cheap paper that gets ripped to shreds then wadded up and thrown into a trash bag.

That's almost a tank of gas!!

And all of it becomes trash -

I'm not much of an environmentally aware individual - but who likes waste??

We have done the Santa bags two ways so far. The first year we each had our own Santa Bag, all gifts went inside and each gift had a sticky "to/from" tag. I made cute, personalized letters to identify the persons bag. We learned that even in the larger bags, it's tricky to get all their gifts (or larger/awkwardly sized gifts) into one bag.

Last year, we went more with the each gift gets a separate bag concept & we just used the "to/from" tags on the outside of the bags.

Each bag was roughly the cost of a large gift bag from Target. Check out Pinterest, there are great tutorials for making your own bags (with some minor sewing skills required)!

The first year, we got the felt bags from Bed, Bath & Beyond for $5.99 and the "fluffy" Santa bags were a little bit pricey {In my cheap opinion} at about $10.99 each (purchased at CVS). Black Friday last year we picked up more than ten more bags in some really cute colors & prints at Michaels Craft Store. I noticed the same thing though, they go quickly (at least around here) and as with all things seasonal... once they're gone, they're gone!

When we started this two years ago we didn't have a child yet (and weren't expecting), but we've already decided that we will likely make a Santa Bag exception for Cora and any future kiddos. There is just something so fun about watching a child rip paper off gifts! 

What Christmas/Holiday traditions do you have that make life easier? 
Do you use re-useable gift bags/Santa bags?