Christmas: ‘Tis the season to be SUP merry – sustainable giving, with McConks.

Christmas gifts, when you get them right, is a joy (especially SUP and stand up paddle board related presents). When you’ve bought something that makes you happy as well as making the recipient happy, you know you’ve nailed it. But if you’re anything like McConks, you probably find it a bit of a struggle every year to square the circle of buying interesting and meaningful presents and remaining sustainable and ethical.

After the madness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you might be a little sick of false bargains and gimmicky marketing tricks – we definitely are! So these are our tips for buying gifts that paddleboarders will love, without buying yourself a guilty conscience.

Christmas experience gifts and memories that last

Study after study, along with personal experience, have shown that the best types of Christmas present are experiences rather than things: you remember and talk about experiences for years, but material things lose their value quickly as the next best thing becomes available. And if you don’t buy an experience (maybe you’re worried about that useless loved one forgetting about the voucher, and it expiring – been there, done that!), the next best thing you can do is to buy thing that helps them get out there and make their own experiences! 

Lots of our brand partners and friends are schools, guides and instructors who offer amazing experiences year round. But on the basis that you might not want to buy a gift to be used in the cold winter months, nearly all of them all also let you buy gift cards. Check out the list of providers who gift cards for experiences below.

SUP4 – SUP lessons and tuition.

GoExperience – Croatian adventure SUP and experiences.

smoc smoc – eco, waterproof dry robes.

Check out our long read on the 5 psychological reasons why experiences are the best gifts.  If you’re not convinced, this article will convince you!

5 reasons why experiences make the best gift.

Buy Christmas gifts from a small company

Buying from a small company sometimes takes a bit more effort, or planning, than buying from amazon, or ebay for example. But it is so much more rewarding.  Often, the personal customer service you get is way better than anything offered by a nameless, faceless multi-national. And the products are often much better as well.

We personally recommend all of the small companies in the article below, but also check out the SUPhubUK map to find your nearest SUP shop or SUP provider

https://www.mcconks.com/give-a-little-pleasure-for-christmas/

At McConks we pride ourselves on being as sustainable and ethical as we can be – whether that be low impact manufacture, or organic and fairwear clothing.  And that’s why you can buy with confidence from us, guilt free.  If you’re interested, you can find out more about our ethical principles here, or you can read about what we do to give something back through our Go Inspire initiative here.

A few more ideas of potential Christmas gifts for the stand up paddler in your life.

For the adventure paddler the following would work extremely as Christmas stocking fillers.