Green Holiday Ideas

”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

NEW WAYS to Give

• Draw names, with each person buying for just one other family member.

• 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 or love or other ways.
• Instead of spending money on one another, take the money your family would have spent and donate it to a local environmental group or charity.
• Find a family that can’t afford any gifts, ask them what they need, and buy for them.
• Save gift-giving for birthdays. Make your holidays about gathering with those you love and the sharing of good times, not about material things. Don’t give gifts at all.

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.

LOCAL Gifts

strengthen the local economy, save energy, and help foster community.

• Dinner on the town
• A share of a CSA
• A membership in a local non-profit organization
• A state park pass
• Tickets to a museum exhibition, play, local movie theater, concert, or a sports event
• Gift certificates for local services, such as a massage, or for local classes, such as yoga, cooking, language, art, or music
• Gift certificates for groceries or utilities (Yes! They exist!)

GREEN Gifts

can save money for the recipient while helping to save the planet.

• A Sustain Dane rain barrel (www.rainreserve.com)
• Sign up your loved one for The Natural Step Monona composter sale next May (663-2459)
• Compact fluorescent bulbs
• Mesh or canvas shopping bags
• A programmable thermostat
• 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.

Gifts of TIME

• Coupons for your own services—babysitting, a foot rub, house cleaning, washing the dishes, weeding or planting—using skills you have and keeping in mind what the recipient would enjoy

• A single coupon or a coupon book with all the non-materialist pleasures and activities you enjoy doing with a loved one. Examples: a nature hike, reading a book aloud, a game night…

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.

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 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. 85% 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—Tips from environmental professionals
  for giving easy-on-the-planet presents that go way beyond the basics.
• From area rugs to zinc oxide ointment, The
  Green Guide’s Product Directory provides you with details about better product choices. Click on individual
  product types to read articles featuring the items and to learn more about
  the issues surrounding the environmental impacts of their conventional counterparts.

PLUS!
Catch twenty-four of The Natural Step Monona members along with their children and grandchildren on Channel 12 this holiday season. Your neighbors and friends have gone to the effort to create public service announcements highlighting the information you’ve read here. They are doing their part to become more sustainable this season and to let you know how you can, too. Please join them in having the greenest holiday season!

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