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Get festive this year without leaving an environmental footprint the size of the North Pole. Check out our sustainable Christmas tips and if you've got a green tip of your own, we'd love to hear it in the comments section below.

Christmas trees: fake or fresh?

For a lot of us, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without a tree, so should you fake it or go fresh?

Fake plastic trees tend to be re-used for between six to 10 years, but they eventually get tossed. Once they're in landfill, they never degrade. Plus they're usually made overseas and it takes energy and resources to make and transport them to our lounge rooms.

Real trees have a footprint too, but that's relatively offset by the carbon soaked up during their time in the ground. The greenest option is to make your own arrangements with branches or grab a potted Australian native pine like a Wollemi or Cypress that can be used year after year - decorate with homemade trinkets and recycled goodies. Or if you want to buy some, make sure they're manufactured to last.

DIY, homemade or vintage gifts

Instead of buying all your gifts new, choose vintage or pre-loved items from markets, op shops, Etsy or garage sales. Even better, there's a bevy of online stores that specialise in homemade and local products.

Why not try a DIY gift? You have a chance to indulge in a 'crafternoon', and your lucky recipient will have a truly unique gift. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Try these sites for inspiration:

Work with items you already own or have access to, or check op-shops, vintage stores and markets for supplies:

How to find sustainable and ethical store-bought gifts

If getting crafty is not for you, then give some thought to what you buy, where it came from, who made it and how far it travelled. Shop local and buy Australian-made where possible (try independent maker markets like Finders Keepers Market). Look for certifications, like Fair Trade and cruelty-free such as Good Spender. Check your favourite charity sites for more options such as - a commission free website listing a huge number of charities and options for non-monetary giving. You could also give the gift of an experience or a workshop to learn a new skill. The feeling will last much longer than a throw-away material item. Some ideas might be:

Cards and wrap: time to get crafty

Beautifully wrapped presents quickly turn into a depressing mountain of ripped paper. Cut the waste with material off-cuts, old scarves or vintage hankies.

You can reuse your cards too. Try chopping up last year's cards and turn them into gift tags, or cut off the picture side and send them as Christmas postcards. E-cards are a great way of saving money and trees, but if you prefer sending them the traditional way, go for cards made from recycled paper or ones that support a charity.

Decorations: deck the halls with recycled goodies

Choose durable baubles and trinkets that will last for years. Instead of using paper napkins, tablecloths, plates and cutlery, go for fabric ones that can be washed and used again. Decorate the table with flowers or pine cones and get the kids to make name tags and place settings out of last year's Christmas paper and cards.

If you have old decorations that you won't reuse, donate them to an op shop or online through sites like or . Finally, when it comes to lighting up your tree, make sure you choose LEDs.

Food: buy seasonal, local and watch the waste

Many of us are guilty of stuffing ourselves at Christmas, but unfortunately we also end up throwing away tonnes of perfectly good food. This is really bad for the environment: when wasted food breaks down in landfill it generates methane - a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and is 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

Instead of chucking your leftovers, freeze them for a rainy day or get creative and turn them into something else. If you need inspiration, check out tips from ,, National Leftovers Day, Jamie Oliver's Christmas Food Waste Tips and this list of 100 ways to use your left overs and scraps.

Shopping local and buying seasonal produce helps support local businesses and cuts down on unnecessary travel miles.

Find which suppliers stock local meat and fish or see our list of the best local farmers markets in inner Sydney.

And when it's all over?

Don't let your unwanted gifts end up in landfill. If you have a receipt then hotfoot it back to the store for an exchange, store credit or refund. Or you could re-gift it, donate it or sell it online using services like , , The Freecycle Network or . Check Garbage Guru if you're tossing, to see where more tricky items should go.

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Get festive this year without leaving an environmental footprint the size of the North Pole. Check out our sustainable Christmas tips and if you've got a green tip of your own, we'd love to hear it in the comments section below.

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Don't let your Christmas tree go into landfill this year - make sure it's recycled. Photograph: Graham TurnerAre you dreaming of a green Christmas? Follow our A-Z of tips and find out how you can enjoy the festive season without costing the earth.

A is for artificial trees These are not necessarily greener - although they last for longer, they are made from plastic, not recycleable or from a renewable source and have probably been shipped great distances. There are also question marks over where they are made and the labour used. Real trees also help to remove carbon from the atmosphere while they are growing (more on real trees below under C).

B is for batteries New gifts at Christmas often mean that households go through a lot of batteries. Batteries contain toxic chemicals, do not biodegrade and are difficult to recycle. As an alternative, Nigel's ecostore recommends using rechargeable batteries or trying the new AA size USB rechargeable batteries. By opening the cap and plugging into a USB connector, you can recharge them pretty much anywhere.
C is for ...
Candles Paraffin candles are made from petroleum residue and are no good for your health or for the environment. Candles made from soy, beeswax or natural vegetable-based wax are more eco-friendly because they biodegrade and are smoke-free.

Cards Recyclenow.com has teamed up with the Woodland Trust card recycling scheme which will allow people to recycle their cards throughout January at participating retailers. With an average of 17 cards in the UK for every man, woman and child, that's a lot of trees saved. Can you send an e-card instead? Purchase recycled or charity cards or cut up last year's and re-use them?

Compost Compost all your food peelings or get a wormery to help break down the vegetable food waste into rich soil nutrition.

Clothes Over 80,000 tonnes of old clothes will be thrown away this Christmas. so if you do get a new wardrobe, make sure you donate your old clothes to a local charity shop.

Christmas trees Real trees are the more eco-friendly choice, as long as you consider where and how they have been grown.

Make sure you get one from a sustainable source. There are over 400 Christmas tree growers across the UK registered with the British Christmas Tree Growers' Association, where trees are grown according to strict guidelines governing everything from sustainable seeds and cultivation to protecting local wildlife.

The Soil Association also certifies some trees as organic, which means that no pesticides will have been used during growing.

You could also choose a tree with roots so that it can be replanted.

This post on www.smartplanet.com has another suggestion:

The best way to use a real tree, though, is to use a live one. You can grow your own with a kit from Ecotopia - although it might just be a bit late to start growing one for this year - or you can tryPines and Needles who offer healthy Nordmann fir and Norway spruce trees in pots (and can recycle them afterwards too). This means that they will stay fresh all the way through Christmas, won't drop needles all over your floor and you can even plant them in the garden in January. Failing that, take the tinsel off and keep them indoors all year round.
For something altogether different there's always the Woodland Trust's new "'eco trees" made of recycled card that you can fold down and use year after year. Or you could just forego the whole palaver and dedicate a tree - it'll offset some carbon emissions, too.

Recycle your tree after Christmas. Six million trees brightened up homes and offices across Britain last year, of which only 10% were recycled. The rest went into landfill, a wasted opportunity to create biomass that would have provided nutrients for depleted soil. Many local authorities and garden centres will be recycling Christmas trees after the festive period.
D is for ...
Decorations Use recycled decorations - Revolve uses CDs and juice cartons to make your tree sparkle. Or decorate your tree with products that are fairly traded and ethically sourced. The WWF has some ideas here. Or get creative and make your own - ideas here.

Defrost your freezer before Christmas It will work more efficiently and create more space to store leftover food, so that it doesn't go to waste.

E is for eco-bags Use a cotton shopper bag instead of all that plastic. Bags of Change recently won two gongs at the Green England awards and offer organic hemp-cotton bags. Or, if you sign up and complete 12 pledges in our green community we will give you one for free.

F is for food shopping For some horrifying statistics on how much food we throw away, read this story.

By the time the ingredients that make up the average British Christmas dinner arrive on our plates, they have travelled a combined distance of 49,000 miles. Turkeys from Europe, vegetables from Africa, wine from the southern hemisphere, cranberries from America - the turkey and trimmings add up to the equivalent of 6,000 car trips around the world, new research from the University of Manchester has found. Try this food foodprint calculator to check some of your ingredients.

Buy an organic turkey. Ten million turkeys are eaten every Christmas, so try to make sure it has been reared in humane conditions.

Buy local or buy less. Produce bought locally means you will be supporting small suppliers and the local community, while minimising your carbon footprint. Shop at a local farmers' market, or try growing some of your own vegetables where possible.

Buy your fruit and vegetables loose and ditch all that wasteful plastic packaging. Make sure the goods that are packaged are made from recycled materials.

Buy drinks in bigger bottles rather than small ones. One large bottle generates less waste than several smaller ones.

Try to avoid serving people with paper or plastic plates and cups if you are entertaining.

Pack all your goods into a re-usable shopping bag or re-use old plastic bags.

Don't forget to put the vegetable peelings from your Christmas dinner in your home compost bin.

K is for keeping your curtains closed. This keeps heat in and saves energy and money. And with all those guests to entertain, more heat is going to be generated anyway.

L is for lights Christmas tree lights left on for 10 hours a day over the 12 days of Christmas produce enough CO2 to inflate 12 balloons, so turn them off when they are not needed (you can join our green community, Tread lightly, by pledging to turn off your lights for longer here - you must sign in).

If you want to be more environmentally friendly, try switching to either LED lights, choosing lights that are powered by solar power or rechargeable batteries, or installing an energy-saving bulb to offset the energy usage.

If you haven't already - make it a new year's resolution to switch to energy-efficient light bulbs (sign up for this Tread lightly pledge here).
P is for ...
Plastic-free More than 17bn plastic bags are handed out by supermarkets a year - that's 300 for every man, woman and child - causing nearly 60,000 tonnes of plastic to go to landfill sites (more on why plastic bags are so bad here).

Now and after Christmas, use a cotton eco-shopper (if you sign up and complete 12 Tread lightly pledges we will give you one for free) or take old plastic bags and reuse them.

You could even follow Modbury's example, and get your whole town to go plastic bag-free.

With retailers yet to get the message on excessive packaging, try to avoid purchasing products and food that are overpackaged.

Presents Buy local or buy less. Each Christmas, 4,000 tonnes of products arrive from China. Presents bought locally means you will be supporting small suppliers and the local community, while minimising your carbon footprint.

Check out some of our ethical gift ideas here.

Buy durable gifts and avoid buying or requesting presents that rely on disposable parts like batteries. Try to look for alternatives, for example, goods that are solar or wind-up powered.

Do you have to buy gifts? Could you buy an "experience" instead? Try cinema tickets, club memberships, gift tokens. Sponsor an animal, buy them some rainforest to protect - but don't give them another unwanted gift which they will simply throw away.

R is for recycle According to Recyclenow.com, English households will throw out an additional 3m tonnes - that's five sacks of rubbish per family - over the festive period. Much of this will be waste that could have been recycled.

If you're not doing it already, it's getting harder to have an excuse not to recycle, with nine out of 10 homes in Britain now having a doorstep recycling service which will take paper, card, glass and metal cans.

If you don't have a doorstep service, take your drinks bottles and paper to the recycling bank when you next go to the supermarket, or find out whether your area has a local recycling depot here.

There are plenty of tips on which materials you can recycle and how here.
T is for ...
Turning off your appliances Turning your appliances off at the mains, rather than leaving them on standby. This saves huge amounts of carbon - find out how much by signing up for the Tread lightly pledge here.

Turning down the thermostat by 1C. Not only does this save carbon and money, it's a good excuse to resurrect the themed Christmas jumper. You can sign up for this Tread lightly pledge here.

U is for using the right-sized pan Use the right-sized pan for the vegetables you cook, and only boil the kettle with the amount of water you need.

W is for wrapping. This constitutes one of the biggest Christmas wastes - the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that last year's wasted paper would be enough to wrap up the Channel island of Guernsey. If we all recycled just half of of the 8,000 tonnes produced we'd save 25,000 trees. Try wrapping your presents in brown or recycled paper (WWF has some nice paper here), recycled foil or newspaper, and using string or raffia (made from bark which regenerates) to tie it up.

So what will you be doing this Christmas? Have you got any more tips?
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Don't let your Christmas tree go into landfill this year - make sure it's recycled. Photograph: Graham TurnerAre you dreaming of a green Christmas? Follow our A-Z of tips and find out how you can enjoy the festive season without costing the earth.

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How to Have a Green Christmas. Christmas is a time of gifts, joy, and family togetherness. Unfortunately, it can also be a time of excess when thoughts for conserving money and resources seems to take a nosedive. Celebrating a green...

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According to Andy Williams, it's "the most wonderful time of the year". But unless it's a Green Christmas you're planning, it's also the most wasteful, consumer-driven and stressful time.

But it doesn't have to be! With a little knowledge, some family discussion and a change of focus, it's easy to turn a few Christmas ideas into a holiday with more meaning than "stuff". Whether it's a religious holiday for you or not, Christmas celebrations should have meaning. Celebrate that and the holiday will remain eco-friendly.

What's the eco-footprint of Christmas?

With approximately $75 billion spent on Christmas gifts, 1.9 billion cards sent, and 20.8 million Christmas trees cut in the U.S. alone, the impact of this one holiday is immense. While worldwide information is hard to come by, the Australian Conservation Foundation reports a minimum of 2,285,000 tonnes of greenhouse pollution contributed to Christmas in Australia alone! ¹

Green Christmas Ideas to Remember

The most important thing we can do to create a Green Christmas is to make it one we can enjoy. This means connecting to the meaning of Christmas, whether religious or personal, and creating edifying traditions. Christmas should speak to you in the way it did as a child; full of magic, wonder and connection.

Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. - Mary Ellen Chase

Slow Down: Stop running in circles, give yourself permission to say "No" to too many commitments, and focus your attention on the details that we so often miss. Revel in the smells of baking or the sounds of bells. Allow the Spirit of the holiday to envelop you in the warmth and joy it has to offer.

Connect with the Season: Light candles, decorate a Winter Table, create Advent traditions and reflect on the year or Christmas' past. Surround yourself with the beauty of the holiday and the seasonal changes and savor what you begin to notice in the details.

Connect With Others: Make time for family traditions or create new ones. Bake with your children, send handwritten cards with gratitude for each recipient, organize holiday wrapping parties with friends and keep your focus on those you love.

Green Christmas ideas abound. But from gift giving to decorating and more, the first thing to keep in mind is the same as always: Simplify. Making things simple reduces cost, stress and waste.

Below are just a few things to get you started, but the more you experiment and reevaluate your choices this holiday season, the more Green Christmas ideas will come to you.

Green Christmas Gift Ideas:

Gift giving and Christmas are nearly synonymous. It's perhaps the biggest part of Christmas' impact and the first place to start.

Less Really Is More:
Forego an excess of "stuff" that will end up in the yard sale come July and make every gift count by purchasing things with value, purpose and meaning.

Choose Sustainable Materials:
Organic cotton, hemp, silk, wood...all are natural, renewable materials. They add texture and character to gifts. And they support sustainable farmers.

Shop Locally-Owned:
Support your community and local economy by shopping small mom-and-pop stores, especially if those stores also sell locally made items.

Sustainable Wrapping Paper:
Ditch the rolls of wrapping paper and avoid glossy or metallic gift wrap. Instead, check out fabric gift wrap or these creative gift wrap ideas. Use the greeting cards received last year or any other recycled material to make gift tags. For gift bags that come with tags attached, write "Reuse this bag!" on it instead of the recipient's name. (Just don't forget who it goes to.)

The Gift of Charity:
Give money to a local charity, sponsor a child overseas or help impoverished women start a small business all in the name of your loved ones.

Make It Fun and Easy:
Decrease spending, stress and waste by having family members draw names and sticking to a 'one gift' rule. This allows each person to get one especially thoughtful and unique gift from someone who had the time to dedicate their effort.

You can also do a White Elephant gift exchange: everyone only gives gifts they find around their home with no money spent.

A Handmade Gift Exchange: Only handmade gifts (from hand-knit scarves to cookies) may be given.

And a Yankee Swap is also lots of fun. Here are the rules to a Yankee Swap:

1. Each person who wishes to participate contributes a wrapped gift, with a predetermined price tag.

2. With everyone in a circle, randomly choose who will go first. That person then chooses ONE gift from the pile and opens it.

3. The next person then has the option of choosing an unopened gift or "stealing" the gift from the first person. If the gift is stolen, the first person then chooses again.

4. This continues through participants until the last gift is opened.

5. But the kicker: A gift cannot be stolen more than three times; the third person to steal keeps the gift!

Read about more ways to keep your Green Christmas gifts sustainable and meaningful with these Green Gift Giving tips.

Green Christmas Decorating Ideas:

Part of the fun is in creating a winter wonderland both inside and outside our home using simple, affordable and beautiful decorations.
FACTS
Christmas pine, spruce, and fir trees are edible! The needles are a good source of vitamin C and pine nuts, within pinecones, make an excellent snack. You can also boil the needles to fill your home with their aroma.

Less Is Still More:
Again, don't overdue it. Cluttered decorations are neither inspiring, nor beautiful. Keep it simple and clean to enjoy it more.

Decorate With Nature:
Avoid plastic doodads and opt for wood, burlap, or organic cotton. Bring in elements from the outdoors to incorporate into your home, such as a wreath of pine boughs or an abandoned nest to place a candle within.

Research Green Christmas Tree Options:
From my own research I feel artificial trees used for a few years are less sustainable than a live tree that can be mulched and supports a small business. However, artificial trees used for 10-15+ years may use less energy in the long-run. Because they are rarely made to last this long, we personally choose a real tree from a small business that is as local as possible and organically grown when available. A potted tree is another green choice that can be used for multiple years before planting outdoors. For a slightly biased opinion on the real tree vs. fake tree debate, check out the National Christmas Tree Association.

Choose Handmade and Homemade:
Whether made by yourself or a local artisan, handmade items will bring a simple, beautiful energy into your home. Create your own ornaments or help your kids cut and hang snowflakes from scrap paper saved throughout the year.

Energy-efficient LED Lighting:
If your strands of lights are older than 10 years it will be more efficient to replace them with newer, LED bulbs. They can also save you up to 90% or more on power costs and will last longer than traditional bulbs.

Replace Burnt Out Bulbs:
Too many perfectly good lights are thrown away when a single bulb bursts. Spend the time to find and replace the culprit or invest in a bulb tester (that can be shared between multiple families).

Utilize Timers:
All your Christmas lights should be on timers, from the strands adorning your trees to the lights outside. Don't count on remembering to turn them off after a long day and plug the lights into a timer that remembers for you. Light timers can be found at any hardware store.

Ornaments:
Choose durable and meaningful ornaments. Wood, metal, or cloth will all last longer than plastic or thin glass. And an ornament that symbolizes an important event from the year will mean it is kept and treasured for a lifetime.

Green Christmas Dinner Ideas

The family meal is a time to relax, connect and celebrate. With these sustainable Christmas ideas, you can focus on the experience with comfort:

Organic, Local and Free-Range:
Choose a heritage turkey or grass-fed, organically raised roast. Organic winter squash from your backyard, locally grown vegetables from the farmer's market and homemade rolls all create a sustainable, delicious and healthy meal.Click here to learn how to make all this more affordable.

Natural Centerpiece:
Create your centerpiece from natural elements, such as pine wreaths, an arrangement of Poinsettias and beeswax candles.

Skip Disposables:
Bring out the fine china, utensils and cloth napkins. Or pool resources from several houses for large gatherings.

Avoid Individual Beverages:
Make homemade eggnog, hot chocolate or iced tea in large quantities and prepare pitchers of ice water in advance to set on each table to reduce waste from water and soda bottles or cans.

Compost:
Any food scraps that can't be used for leftovers (or broths) can be composted or given to animals to reduce any potential waste.

Clean Green:
Clean up after guests have left withall-natural household cleaners. Run only full loads of dishes in the dishwasher and throw cloth napkins and tablecloths in with other laundry.

Other Green Christmas Ideas:

After the shopping, decorating and food there is still much left to consider. Most of them are small details that will add up to a big impact.

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. - Norman Vincent Peale

FACTS
The average America household will send and receive 28 Christmas cards each year. That's approx. 3.2 BILLION cards!

Celebrate Together:
Conserve resources and connect with others by celebrating your green Christmas at the home of friends or family. Or invite them to your home as your gift to them.

Make Your Own Greeting Cards:
Use the cards you received last year, a child's artwork or your own craftiness to create new Green Christmas cards. Use recycled paper for holiday letters. Or send a family photo with your greeting handwritten on the back.

Combine Shopping Trips:
Make your own list and check it twice to reduce trips for forgetton items. Find stores that sell the majority of items on that list and do as much of your shopping on one day as possible.

Carpool Or Take Public Transit:
Both for shopping trips and on Christmas day, utilize carpooling to decrease fuel consumption and traffic. Organize bus routes for urban commuters travelling to your home for the holiday.

Shop Online:
Find small businesses to give your money to and try to shop as close to home as possible.

Ship With USPS Ground:
When possible choose to have them delivered by the postal service, who will already be in your area delivering mail. Or you could have them shipped to your work if deliveries are regularly made there by another shipping company.

Recycle:
Any non-glossy paper wrapping can be shredded for the compost or added to the recycling bins. Be sure to keep the bows and ribbons for multiple uses, as well as tissue paper, gift bags and boxes. Also, packaging from beverages or food containers should be rinsed and recycled as well.

Let me quote Thoreau by stating again the first rule of a Green Christmas: Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Everything else is easy.

Books for a Green Christmas

There are so many more ideas that you can implement for our holidays and celebrations. Here are just a few books to get you started (try to find them at your local library):

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Creating a Green Christmas: 30+ Ideas to Keep It Eco-Friendly - Sustainable Baby Steps

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According to Andy Williams, it's "the most wonderful time of the year". But unless it's a Green Christmas you're planning, it's also the most wasteful, consumer-driven and stressful time. But it doesn't have to be! With a little knowledge, some family discussion and a change of focus, it's easy to turn a few Christmas ideas into a holiday with more meaning than "stuff".

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Christmas doesn't have to be a burden on the planet. With a little effort and imagination, we can reduce the environmental impact of the holiday season. Here are some ideas to help celebrate the season while caring for the earth.

Buy Less

Some holiday gifts fill a practical need and need to be bought new. But many gifts are really gestures of thoughtfulness. You can give more while spending less.

Not All Gifts Have to Be Store-Bought

You can give more while spending less by giving gifts that are personal and unique. While young children may favor the bright, shiny store-bought item, most adults appreciate anything that shows thoughtfulness. Here's a page with some great ideas for meaningful holiday gifts that aren't found on store shelves: Tips for Sustainable Giving.

Simplify the 'Gift-Go-Round'

Feeling overwhelmed by a gift list that's just too long? Here's an idea to help shorten your list and simplify the family gift-giving ritual. We tried this in our own family last year and it was appreciated by all.

Before the holiday season begins (Thanksgiving is a good time because the extended family is often together), put the names of all adult family members on separate slips of paper and put the slips in a hat.

Take turns picking one name per adult: the name you pick is your gift recipient. Keep your chosen pick a secret, to help maintain an element of surprise.

Your gift list for the adults in your family has just been shortened to one! You can now focus on a special gift for the person whose name you picked, without the difficulty and expense of finding just the right gift for everyone.

If the family's not together on Thanksgiving, ask Grandma or someone else in the family to pick the names from the hat for everyone, by proxy. It works just as well. An agreed on spending limit will also help everyone from feeling they have to go overboard with a fabulous gift for the person whose name they chose.

Buy Smart: Think 'Green'

Look for Locally Made Gifts

Many gifts in today's marketplace come from halfway around the world, and the impact of transportation contributes significantly to greenhouse emissions and global warming. Local craft fairs and artisan shops are a good source for gifts that come without the added costs of transportation. And gifts made locally often have a story which goes with the gift, since the artisan and the origin of the gift are known.

"A great way to teach children the spirit of giving (and simplifying) during the holidays is to ask them to pick three toys that they don't play with very much, and donate them to a homeless shelter, domestic violence shelter, etc. I saw children bring toys into the shelter I worked at year after year - it was a wonderful experience for everyone!" - Lauren, New Hampshire

Choose Gifts Made From Recycled Sources

Many individuals and small businesses have developed great products using recycled materials. Supporting these businesses helps reduce the waste stream while promoting the concept of making best use of available materials. Here are some examples for you to consider: Gifts from recycled materials

Give 'Battery-Free' Gifts

According to the EPA, about 40% of all battery sales occur during the holiday season. Discarded batteries are an environmental hazard. Even rechargeable batteries find their way into the waste stream eventually. Here are a few examples of gifts that have less of an impact on the environment: Naturally-powered toys

Avoid Children's Toys That Promote Violence

There is too much violence in the world, and the new wave of video games for children is disturbing. Remember the theme of Christmas is "Peace on Earth." There are many toys and games that are fun, and nurture children's' creativity and sense of active play. Here are some examples: Educational toys and games

'Re-gifting' is Okay

There's always discussion about the etiquette behind the trend to 're-gift', that is, to pass on a gift you received but do not need. What's to discuss? Re-gifting makes perfect sense. If you receive something you really don't need, look for ways you can reuse this gift by passing it on to someone who can use it. Of course, re-gifting needs to be done with care so as not to offend the original giver, but keeping a gift you don't need is wasteful.

Connect with Nature

Christmas is a time for giving and a time for family. What a great opportunity to start a family tradition of giving back to the earth and instilling the values of sustainable living to your children, friends, and community. Start an annual, earth-friendly, Christmas family tradition from the list below. It will also get you outdoors for a few hours to build an appetite for the big dinner.

Annual Christmas Day Bird Count

Take your binoculars, a field guide to local birds, a small pad or journal for each participant and walk a course through your neighborhood, local park or countryside. Try to identify and count every bird you see, and make a note of it in your journal. At the end of the hike, list the species seen and number of birds per species. There's always a surprising discovery, and the activity highlights the presence and value of our feathered friends.

Compare the results from former years and you'll become experts on your local bird population and migration habits. This is a great family activity because even the youngest eyes are just as good at spotting the birds and contributing to the event.

For more information, see our page Annual Bird Count

Family Nature Hike

A peaceful walk through nature on Christmas day will be remembered and valued more than the score of the football game. Plan your walk before the holiday meal while everyone still has lots of energy. The walk will also pique appetites and provide a shared topic for conversation during mealtime.

"This year our family is planning a "Merry Christmas to Nature" day. We found some "decoration recipes" in library books and plan to decorate the outdoors with edible ornaments for the birds, chipmunks, rabbits, etc.. Another thought is to visit a local animal shelter or sanctuary..." -Jo and Amelia Guelph, ON

Nature Restoration Activity

Planting a small tree together symbolizes the value of nature and offsets the 'taking' of the Christmas tree. An hour spent cleaning up or enhancing a natural area also enriches the giver and acknowledges nature as the source of our well-being.

Decorate a Tree for the Birds

Place seed bells, suet, pine cones with peanut butter, and seed trays on any tree in your yard, preferably a tree in the open where cats can be seen easily by the birds. To attract a wide variety of birds, use varied seed types such as black oil sunflower seed, wild bird mixed seed and nyjer seed bells. This is a great activity for kids, and offers an important food source for birds during the winter.

"Another way to make the Holidays more sustainable is to use a living tree as your Christmas tree. For many years, my family has used a potted Norfolk Pine as our Christmas tree.
While not as large or full as the traditional trees, Norfolk Pines can grow to be quite large and in my opinion, they make quite an attractive Christmas tree.

These trees are a great addition to a house year round and they simply need to be decorated come Christmas time, saving much time and effort. They also eliminate the need to cut a tree each year or to buy a fake plastic tree, saving valuable resources.

The use of our Norfolk Pine has become a Christmas tradition in our house and I would like to see more people adopt it as their tradition as well." - Jeff H. Aurora, MN

Lower the Impact of Holiday Lighting

In the past, the house with the most decorative holiday lights used to be considered the 'best'. Times have changed. The cost of electricity goes way beyond the utility bill. Electricity drains natural resources.

Choose a Live Tree

Although plastic Christmas trees are reusable from year to year, real trees are the more sustainable choice. Plastic trees are made of petroleum products (PVC), and use up resources in both the manufacture and shipping. While artificial trees theoretically last forever, research shows that they are typically discarded when repeated use makes them less attractive. Discarded artificial trees are then sent to landfills, where their plastic content makes them last forever.

Live trees, on the other hand, are a renewable resource grown on tree farms, that are replanted regularly. They contribute to air quality while growing, and almost ninety percent are recycled into mulch. Live trees are usually locally grown and sold, saving both transportation costs and added air pollution. Live trees also smell like Christmas!

When Buying a Live Tree, Consider:

Live potted trees can be used for years: If you buy a small tree in a large pot, you may be able to reuse the tree for 2- 3 years without having to plant or repot the tree.

Re-pot the tree for longer use: If your tree becomes root-bound, you can replant it in a larger pot for several years extended use.

Replant the tree when it becomes too large for your holiday tree: If you have the space, of course, replanting the tree outdoors is an option. Be sure to anticipate the full-grown size of the tree, and avoid planting near foundations or underground services.

Chip and mulch the tree: Many communities now have free chipping service for trees. This is useful since the chips are used as mulch for municipal landscaping or sold at low cost to gardeners. This chipped material makes an excellent mulch for your shrub beds and garden pathways.

Make Homemade Cards

Store-bought Christmas cards are rich, elegant, and expensive. They also consume a huge amount of natural resources for a throw-away item. The amount of cards sold in the US during the holiday season would fill a football field 10 stories high, and requires the harvesting of nearly 300,000 trees. Homemade cards may not be as professional, but they are more personal and just as appreciated. Making the cards is also a fun activity for the family during the weeks before Christmas.

Last year's calendar is a good place to start when making homemade cards, since the images are large, colorful and printed on heavy paper similar in weight to card stock. Cut out sections of pictures and 'glue-stick' them to a folded-over piece of paper. Size the paper to fit your envelopes, or have the card and message on one side and fold over to put the address on the other side. Staple at the bottom and no envelope is needed.

Children's art work is another good source for Christmas card pictures. Even the 'scribblings' of the wee-ones are interesting, fun and especially appropriate for the season. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles will probably appreciate a 'child's art' card even more than a store-bought card. Simply cut out sections of the artwork which look best, and glue-stick it to a card of the required size.

Making your own cards is easy if you have the material to work with. Try to get in the habit of saving pieces of heavy paper (good one side) to use as the backing for your glued-on pictures. "Card stock" is the ideal weight, and even small pieces are worth saving.

Find Alternatives to Wrapping Paper

Half of the paper America consumes each year is used to wrap and decorate consumer products. (Source: The Recycler's Handbook, 1990)

In the US, the annual trash from gift wrap and shopping bags totals over 4 million tons. In Canada, the annual waste from gift wrap and shopping bags equals about 545,00 tons. If everyone wrapped just three gifts in reused paper or fabric gift bags, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 hockey rinks.

Use Environmentally Friendly Wrapping Paper

Choose wrapping paper made using fibers such as hemp, or paper using recycled content.

Reuse/Recycle

Each year, 50 million Christmas trees are purchased in the U.S. Of those, about 30 million go to the landfill. And added to this is the carbon cost in transporting all these trees to the landfill. Much of the environmental costs associated with the holidays can be reduced by simple awareness and some pre-planning.

Note: Never burn Christmas tree branches in your fireplace. It can cause the buildup of creosote, which is a highly flammable compound.

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Christmas doesn't have to be a burden on the planet. With a little effort and imagination, we can reduce the environmental impact of the holiday season. Here are some ideas to help celebrate the season while caring for the earth. Some holiday gifts fill a practical need and need to be bought new.