In my experience, the packaging around an Apple product is designed to make opening that product feel like opening jewelry. This seems to require a certain quantity of packaging. It'd be interesting to think about how to create that same feeling of unveiling a very precious object with a minimum of materials.

...which is why e-cards will not be an option but a necessity quite soon at this rate.  web-enabled smart devices should be handed out for free to help save our planet from us, but somehow the word "money" gets in the way of doing the right thing and the "sugar cube" diminishes as its occupants consume their own habitat.  just think, Christmas cards wified to the wall/desk frame, scrolling thru the collection and leaving no tape marks around the threshold!  you want the physical memento, print it out and have it autographed!  otherwise, my bet is you (plural) throw away 90% of cards received within a month or two tops.  sorry, happy holidays, but this is unacceptable waste under any conditions, let alone our current ones, and nostalgia is no excuse for extinction.

are you telling me we can't find a way to fund and engender this change yet we continue to pour billions into antiquated and toxic fuels and technologies? answers!  i want answers!  you know they exist!  =;)