Like most people, I love the fun of cracking open a Christmas bon bon. I must admit though that I find the contents of commercial varieties tacky and the jokes lame at best. The party hats simply don’t fit many of my family members (we get more laughs from the hats splitting than from the jokes) and the trinkets all seem to end up straight in the bin. All this considered, it’s not surprising that bon bons are a rather wasteful and environmentally unfriendly item.

With this being the first ever Christmas that I’m hosting at home, I decided to make some eco-friendly bon bons that not only could be re-used each year, but contain useful items customized to my guests. Now some of you really will be snowed under with the social and other commitments of December and be thinking ‘I really don’t need to add another thing to my list’ but honestly, making your own crackers is easy, cheap, and if you use material like I did you can re-use them year after year.

They also double up as serviettes for Christmas dinner. How eco and cool is that?

To make the serviettes I simply cut different patterned Christmas fabric to 17×17″ squares and hemmed them to prevent fraying. Filling cut-to-size paper towel rolls with useful items such as natural sunscreen, eco-friendly nail files (for the women), lip sunscreen (for the men) and some chocolates for good measure, I wrapped the fabric around the roll and tied with raffia.

I must admit, while these crackers will have no ‘crack’, I’m thrilled with the end result!

Note: For those of you without a sewing machine and desire to cut and hem the fabric, you could just as easily make bon bons from Christmas wrapping paper.

 

Laura