By Leo Babauta

The holiday season, for many, is the ultimate consumerist spending spree. From a little before Black Friday through Christmas, many people spend more than they can afford, trying to buy gifts for everyone they care about.

We often also rack up a ton of credit debt, spending more than we can afford. Or opt into the ever-present “buy now pay later” schemes that are trapping many young (and older) people into debt they can’t keep up with.

And all this buying not only makes us poorer … it’s stressful, creates more waste, and is rarely needed by the person receiving it.

What would it be like to opt out of consumerism? And to embrace the spirit of togetherness and caring that the season has at its essence?

I’d like to present a handful of ideas on spending less, even if you want to give gifts to your loved ones. Take these ideas, or leave ’em!

1. Do a Secret Santa exchange to reduce how many gifts you’re giving. If you’re buying things for everyone, and everyone is doing the same, that’s a lot of gifts to buy. But if everyone just has one person to get a gift for, it reduces things by a lot. Plus, Secret Santa is a fun way to exchange gifts!

2. Make gifts yourself. If you can knit, do woodworking, make art, make collages or scrapbooks, you don’t need to buy something new. If you can’t, consider baking something. Or making something digital and thoughtful. Often gifts are more meaningful if they’re made.

3. Give experience gifts. I really love giving (and receiving) gifts that aren’t a physical thing but an experience — a handmade coupon promising to cook someone a nice dinner, for example, or take them on a picnic. Other ideas: a hike, a massage, helping someone set up their computer or put together furniture, helping someone organize or declutter, doing workouts together, having reading dates, going to a concert together, giving pickleball lessons or piano lessons or Spanish lessons.

4. Agree to buy used gifts. If everyone else is buying new and you buy used, that might not feel great to you. So it can help to talk to your loved ones and see if they’d be up for only buying used this year. There are so many options for buying used these days — websites and marketplaces dedicated to finding great used things. It means that things have their useful lifespan lengthened, and there aren’t more things going to the landfill. And it’s usually cheaper.

5. Give up gift-giving and just focus on gatherings. A radical idea is to have your friends and/or family agree to not do gift giving at all! Not all families or friend groups would be up for this, but maybe yours is pretty open-minded. In that case, focus on things you can do together — holiday meals, of course, but maybe other things like playing games together, going to the theater or a concert, going sledding or building snowpeople, going caroling or doing volunteer work together, or having a living room dance party (or karaoke). Whatever sounds fun for the group!

These aren’t the only ways to reduce how many gifts you buy, and reduce how much you’re spending. But see if any of them feel doable! And thank me as your bank account feels a little more jolly.