Across the UK, people are swapping consumerism for community and creativity, proving that Christmas needn’t mean more waste
You flick on the fairy lights and half the string fizzles out. A bauble hits the floor and shatters. The dog chews something festive that absolutely wasn’t meant to be chewed. Instead of sprinting to buy replacements, there’s a far better option.
All over the country, people are gathering in warm halls and community centres to repair their Christmas clutter for free, share tea and cake, and feel, well, human again. More than 600 repair cafes now dot the UK, so chances are there’s one around the corner. And if not, you can always start one.
In East Sussex, Bryan McAlley has been running the Chailey Repair Cafe for eight years with a team of fellow volunteers, the oldest of whom is 93. They’re gearing up for a festive session in December. “We do a lot of carving knife sharpening at this time of year,” McAlley explains. The team tackles everything from broken decorations to battered kitchen kit, and every fix comes with a side of learning. “We insist that they sit and watch while we repair what they’ve brought, so they learn,” he adds.
McAlley cares deeply about the movement and the way it cuts waste during a season that often encourages the opposite. It’s also a social lifeline. “There’s a social buzz to the place. The atmosphere is always upbeat, it’s a lot of fun,” he says.
If your festive casualty has gone beyond repair, Dundee has another idea. The city’s designer Christmas trees, now in their fourth year, showcase its Unesco City of Design status without felling a single fir. Local artists build them from recycled or reused materials including bed slats, tin cans and old road signs.
Woodworker Louise Forbes and jeweller Islay Spalding created their tree from discarded musical instruments. Topped with a cello scroll, it features parts of violins, guitars, drums, bagpipes, a glockenspiel and even an abandoned piano they discovered in the street. “It was a really fun project,” Forbes says, “taking these instruments apart and putting them together to create a sculptural piece.”
Lowri Johnston, a sustainable flower farmer in Carmarthenshire, south west Wales, makes Christmas wreaths from foraged foliage including ivy and dried strawflowers
Spalding agrees. “There’s something really sad about instruments when they’re broken and can’t be played any more. Instruments are so used to being able to go out and play music to people, and then they lose all their life, they’re firewood. I think we’re giving them a chance to live and breathe again.” Their creation even makes its own delicate music. “We kind of made an instrument out of instruments,” Forbes says.
At home, Spalding decorates her own tree with “trinkets” gathered over the years, including “toy trucks that belonged to my dad when he was wee.” Both artists champion a circular approach to the season. “It’s amazing what you can make with your own waste or recycling,” Forbes says. She suggests macramé decorations made from old cables, while Spalding swears by a spritz of gold spray paint to turn anything from pencils to pine cones into ornaments.
Spalding also highlights the creative lift that comes from reusing materials. “Our brains are clogged with information that gets shoved in there from phones and everything.” Her advice is simple. “Take a break from your phone and fill your brain with all the amazing stuff that’s around you. Go out, notice what’s out there, and look a bit deeper at things.”
Nature itself offers plenty to work with. Lowri Johnston, a sustainable flower farmer in Carmarthenshire, south west Wales, makes Christmas wreaths from foraged foliage including ivy and dried strawflowers. “Most people could probably go out and find enough material to fill a wreath themselves,” she says. “There’s loads of stuff out there.”
She recommends gathering fallen cones and twigs from public spaces, and moss from your own garden for the wreath base, which she wraps around reusable copper rings. And since 2025 has been a mast year, with trees producing bumper crops, holly is especially abundant. If a neighbour has an overflowing bush, she suggests simply asking for a cutting.
Johnston runs workshops where people make wreaths using dried orange slices, eucalyptus and other ingredients. “The smell is lush, and people love the mindful aspect,” she says. “We tend to think of this time of year as quite barren, leaves losing their trees. Making a wreath is a way to celebrate what the season is giving us.”
Main image: cottonbro studio
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