Dear Santa,

I hope everything is running smoothly with all the preparations for Christmas. It must be very hectic around the workshops getting all ready for the big day.

I have been trying really hard to be good this year – especially to the environment. The climate is getting warmer and melting ice in the North Pole and running into extreme weather around the world isn’t going to make your job any easier. I want to do my bit to help the planet and that includes thinking about the impact of my Christmas presents.

So Santa, please could you ask your elves to get my presents second hand? We have really good charity shops around Maynooth and you can get loads of things on adverts.ie.
This would save lots of precious resources and prevent good toys going to waste. It will also help keep the house calm on Christmas morning as the toys will already be made up!
Next, could you please ask your Gift Wrap Elves not to wrap my presents? They do a lovely job but really I don’t appreciate all their effort in my frenzy to get to the gift! A lot of the paper is not recyclable and just makes the bin overflow. If your elves really do want to wrap then maybe they could use newspaper or put things in pillowcases – that would save money
and resources.
And finally Santa, I have a lot of games and toys, it can get a bit tiring to keep them neat and sorted. So instead of more things to clutter up the house, I was thinking you could bring me an experience – like a trip to the zoo or cinema, lunch out in my favourite café, or a winter walk with hot chocolate to finish. I could spend more time with my favourite people building memories and less time tidying!
Thanks everything throughout the years!
Dreaming of a green Christmas,
Zero Waste Maynooth