“In the next month we will be bludgeoned with mixed messages. On one side we have the movement to consume less and decrease our carbon footprint. We keep hearing on the news and in the media that we should behave in a more sustainable way.

On the other side we are approaching the holiday season, with all of its hustle and bustle—giving and sharing, enjoying friends and family, decorations and lights. It is a season of bounty, which unfortunately can also become a time of reckless consumption.

There are options in how you choose to celebrate this holiday season. My hope is that, given a way to reconcile the two disparate messages, you can enjoy this holiday season and be sustainable at the same time. In other words, ‘Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus—and this year he is wearing green!’”

–Laura Gavins, member of The Natural Step Monona

 

THINKING Outside of the Box

With no possibility of a wrong size or color, these gifts won’t be returned. And you won’t use up valuable resources by driving from mall to mall to find them.
  • This year, select a local environmental or humanitarian non-profit – like The Natural Step Monona – and make a donation in their name.
  • In impoverished areas of the world a little goes a long way. Groups such as Save the Children allow you to spend very little, yet give life-altering gifts of basic necessities such as such as medicines, education, and fruit tree seedlings.
  • Take that idea a few steps further and donate not only your money in their name, but commit to donating your time, as well. You can pledge to volunteer one day per week or per month for every person on your list.
  • With groups like Heifer International you can buy a goat, flock of chicks, or a cow for a struggling family in the name of your loved one. The family becomes more self-reliant, and your loved one is honored without your having to put a bow on a cow. 
  • Instead of giving gifts within your family, “adopt” a needy family and give them sustainable, necessary things, such as a basket of local food stuffs from a winter farmers’ market, or seeds and tools to start a new garden in the spring.
  • If you or your family love animals, consider donating food, toys, bedding, collars, or dollars to a local animal shelter.
  • If someone gives you a gift, don’t feel obligated to reciprocate with a gift. Express your thanks in a proper fashion, but reciprocate with your time, love, or other ways.
  • Find a family that can’t afford any gifts, ask them what they need, and buy for them.
  • Don’t give gifts at all. Save gift-giving for birthdays only. Make your holidays more about gathering with those you love and the sharing of good times, and less about material things.

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    If you must buy a gift, choose a gift that doesn’t harm the planet:

  • Buy from independent sources and stores that are in your neighborhood, if possible.
  • Buy locally-produced, quality goods—the cheapest product is rarely the best deal. If you pay for products that are well-made and long-lasting, you’ll buy fewer products over time.
  • Buy products with little or no packaging.
  • Any gift worth giving should be useful and/or bring more than momentary pleasure to the recipient. If it gives little satisfaction to them, it’s a waste to buy. Don’t buy a gift for someone just to buy them something. It’s better not to buy anything at all.
  • Carry your own reusable bags so you don’t use paper or plastic bags.

    • BUY Close By

    Buying from local independent businesses reduces the distance we travel for our goods, lowering our fuel consumption and carbon footprints while bolstering our local economy.
  • Gift Certificates from the Monona Parks & Recreation Department for Family Pool Passes and Recreation Programs. For more details, contact the Parks & Recreation Department at 222-4167.
  • Gifts or gift certificates from Goodwill. Goodwill Gift Certificates can now be purchased online. You may purchase any amount, starting at $10.00 (www.goodwillinc.org/gift.html).
  • Gift certificates for classes in sewing, weaving, or knitting; on food preservation methods such as canning and pickling; or how to make things like paper, candles, or soap.
  • Dinner on the town.
  • A share of a CSA.
  • A membership in a local non-profit organization (like ours!)
  • A membership to a health club, the YMCA, or the nature center.
  • A gift certificate from a dance academy, spa, or Pilates or yoga studio.
  • A gift certificate for local services, such as a massage.
  • Gift cards for local coffee shops and restaurants are great.
  • Arts and crafts from a holiday bazaar or local artist.
  • A state park pass.
  • Tickets to a museum exhibition, play, local movie theater, concert, or a sports event.

    GREEN Gifts

    These gifts can start your loved ones down the road to becoming more self-sufficient individuals or families. These gifts keep on giving and giving, saving money for the recipient while helping to save the planet.
  • Sign up your loved one for The Natural Step Monona composter and rain barrel sale (info@tnsmonona.org).
  • Compact fluorescent bulbs.
  • Mesh or canvas shopping bags.
  • A programmable thermostat.
  • An organic vegetable-seed-starting kit or window herb garden.
  • A yogurt-maker.
  • A retractable laundry line.
  • A whole-house energy monitor..
  • Rechargeable batteries and battery chargers—especially good for families with children.
  • Human-powered crank-handle radios or radio/flashlight combinations.
  • A push mower, solar mower, or electric mower.
  • A home water filter, along with some reusable water bottles.
  • Reusable water bottles.
  • Green cleaning products.
  • A bicycle.
  • A bicycle trailer for the person who wants to do their grocery shopping or other hauling by bicycle.
  • Shares in sustainable mutual funds, solar energy stocks, wind power producers, etc.

    BE GREEN and $ave Green

    In these hard economic times, make the gift of a coupon or coupon book that offers almost anything you can think to do or make. Or offer partnership in all the non-materialist pleasures and activities your loved ones enjoy.
  • A homemade dinner.
  • Sharing a weekend nature hike.
  • A five-minute foot massage.
  • Weeding a garden bed.
  • Reading a book aloud.
  • Planning a game night.
  • Doing the grocery shopping.
  • Doing chores like snow shoveling, dishes, or vacuuming…

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    Kids can make coupons, too:

  • For chores.
  • Free hugs.
  • Babysitting.
  • Helping with meal preparation.
  • Helping with a home-improvement project…

    SAVE Your Loved One’s Green

    (as in dollars) by giving them:
  • A vegetarian cookbook.
  • A hand-cranked radio or flashlight.
  • A window-insulating kit.
  • A gift certificate for their utility company.
  • A gift certificate for their favorite grocery store.

    Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Re-Gift

    According to a survey by eBay, eighty-three percent of U.S. adults receive unwanted gifts during the holiday season.
  • You can reduce the number of unwanted gifts by exchanging names within your extended family or group of friends and buying only one gift for that one special person.
  • If you feel you have to give a gift to each individual, make it just that – a gift, not many gifts.
  • Reduce the carbon footprint of your travel this year. Stay home and travel via the internet instead of via auto or jet. You can create and share an on-line photo album, or get together through a family website or blog. If each family reduced holiday gasoline consumption by one gallon, greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by one million tons.
  • Reuse by buying the gift of hankies. Yes, cloth hankies still exist. You’ll find them in the men’s department of your local department store. They can be used over and over. Never buy tissue and tissue boxes again!
  • Recycle by having your kids go through their overflowing toy box to gather a few toys to share with those less fortunate. Adults can do this, too, as we have toys – and clothes, kitchenware, and electronics – that we could share.
  • “Re-gift” by giving those gifts you’ve received that are not your style to someone who would appreciate them. Re-gifting has wide appeal as a green alternative for dealing with well-intentioned, but un-loved gifts. Re-gifting combines “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” into one!

    • HOMEMADE Gifts

  • A basket filled with baked goods or local artisanal foodstuffs.
  • A collection or cookbook of favorite family recipes.
  • A homemade holiday wreath made of birdseed, dried fruit, and suet. The recipient will enjoy it, as will the birds who consume it.
  • A video of family members recounting family stories or sharing memories from their childhoods.
  • A poem you wrote, a picture you drew, or a song you composed.

    STOCKING Stuffers

  • Toothbrushes with replaceable heads are available at Community Pharmacy
  • Razors with replaceable blades and recyclable handles are available at the Willy Street Co-op.

    WRAPPING Gifts

    Americans throw away 25 percent more trash during the holiday season, adding almost five-million extra tons of waste to our landfills. If every household wrapped just three presents in reusable materials, we would save enough paper to cover 15,000 football fields.
  • Wrap gifts in newspaper, magazines, comics, used wrapping paper, children’s drawings, or left-over wallpaper.
  • Before you wrap children’s gifts with the comics, put a quarter or two in the box to show how much you saved by not using wrapping paper. The extra surprise will make opening the present even more fun and will help everyone realize how recycling saves—both trees and money.
  • Use gift bags, baskets, or tins.
  • Wrap the lid of a box to create a reusable gift box.
  • Adopt the Japanese custom of wrapping in reusable cloth.
  • Wrap with cotton dish cloths, napkins, or scarves, so they become part of the present.
  • Don’t even try to wrap oversize gifts. A recycled bow is enough.
  • Wrap gifts with used ribbons, yarn, or shoelaces. Use cloth ribbons year after year. Top a box with dried flowers. Draw bows on your packages.
  • Try new ways to reuse materials.
  • Skip the wrapping entirely and instead hunt through the house for the gifts. If you hide them under chairs and beds, in closets, in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator, etc. everyone will have a great time. If you think you might forget, make a list of where you hid them.

    HOLIDAY Greetings

    The 2.65 billion holiday cards sold each year in the United States would fill a football field ten stories high. If each of us sent just one fewer card, we’d save 50,000 cubic yards of paper.
  • Send e-cards or make phone calls to family, friends, and business associates instead of sending holiday cards.

  • Save the holiday cards you receive and reuse the fronts as holiday postcards next year.

  • If you feel you can’t do without them, at least buy cards or better yet— postcards—made of recycled paper, organic cotton-blend paper, hemp, or other biodegradable material.

    • DECORATING the Tree and House

    The greenest Christmas tree is the one you never buy. Next best is one that is planted in the ground, pesticide-free, and grown sustainably. The closer you can get to that ideal, the better it is for the planet.

     

    If you have a fake tree, continue to use it so it doesn’t end up in a landfill; but if you don’t have a fake tree, don’t buy one. Almost all fake trees are made with PVC, an environmentally-bad, non-renewable plastic. Eighty-five percent of fake trees are made in China, where labor standards don’t adequately protect workers from these dangerous chemicals. Plus, they are shipped half-way around the world to get to us.

     

    A better alternative—buy a cut tree, but make sure to find a local, organic source. The biggest downside of cut Christmas trees is that, because they are agricultural products, they often are sprayed with repeated applications of pesticides over their typical eight-year lifecycles. While they are growing–and then again once they are discarded–they may contribute to pollution of local watersheds. So find a tree farm that uses sustainable practices.

     

    Find your cut tree locally. A tree trucked in from far away wastes fuel and causes pollution.

     

    Beyond these issues with cut trees, the sheer numbers of trees that get discarded after every holiday can be a big waste issue for municipalities that aren’t prepared to mulch them for compost.

     

    Even better than a cut tree—buy a living tree from a local, organic source. While trees grow, they replenish the air with oxygen. Just one acre of Christmas trees produces enough oxygen to support eighteen people. Tree farms provide habitat for birds and other wildlife. For instructions on how to plant a live tree, go to www.pickyourownchristmastree.org/caring4atree.php and scroll to the bottom of the page.

     

    To have the greenest tree of all—decorate an existing outdoor tree, decorate an indoor house plant, or create your own artistic tree as a craft project. The greenest Christmas tree of all is the one you never buy!

     

    If you’ve bought a tree and you can’t do without holiday lights, use LED lights for your tree and your house. They save up to 90% of the energy used by traditional holiday lights, while lasting 100 times as long. (They are used on the holiday lighting up and down Broadway in Monona.) Don’t leave your lights on all night. If you find it difficult to remember to turn your lights off, use a timer to save electricity.

    WEBSITES of Interest

    The Great Green Gift-Giving Guide http://www.nrdc.org/cities/living/ggift.asp

    The Green Guide’s Product Directory http://www.thegreenguide.com/products/

    12 Rules for Regifting without Fear http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/Advice/12RulesForRegiftingWithoutFear.aspx

    Dane County Humane Society http://www.giveshelter.org/ & http://www.giveshelter.org/sitemgr/wish_list

    National Park Foundation www.nationalparks.org

    Natural Resources Defense Council www.nrdc.org

    Nature Conservancy http://nature.org/

    Oxfam-America www.oxfamamerica.org

    Union of Concerned Scientists www.ucsusa.org

    Meals on Wheels Association of America http://www.mowaa.org/

    PLUS!

    Catch forty-three of The Natural Step Monona members and family in our YouTube videos. Your neighbors and friends created twelve public service announcements to highlight the information you’ve read here. They are doing their part to become more sustainable and to share ideas with you. Please join them in having the greenest holiday season!

     

    Best wishes for delight, harmony, and peace in this and all seasons.