Tips for a more Sustainable Holiday Season

As our apartment slowly fills with Amazon boxes, I wonder if Sustainable Mom actually stayed in the country with Sophie and the snow blower. After a year back in New York, I am finding it difficult to live lighter in this mecca of conspicuous consumption...especially around the holidays.

In an effort to get myself back on track, I've compiled some ideas to help you and me have a simpler, lighter and more sustainable holiday season...or perhaps more accurately compiled a few ideas for how to avoid totally over doing Christmas on every level...

Sustainable Decorating

Although I bought a few decorations for the tree at the Hong Kong airport, decorations are better made and not bought. Since the Freen has been old enough to make art, I've been trying to save anything with a holiday theme and use it each year and now at five we've started to accumulate quite a bit. Even if your child goes to a school that refuses to give them a Christmas tree to color, you can use non holiday themed projects from the past year to make a collage on red or green paper.

If you are not lucky enough to have your own Kandinsky or if you prefer more traditional fare...Global Goods Partners has a great selection of silk ornaments including a Christmas tree and a Dove. Etsy also has great selection my favorites include the Bicycle Tube Snowflakes and this tin Christmas Tree.

According to Treehugger LED Christmas lights use 80% less energy than regular lights and last ten years or more. I have also read that like regular lights you can get bad batches which at the premium price can be frustrating. I didn't buy them this year only because I had some regular lights from last year left over and I wasn't sure about mixing. Regardless, for a single tree it may not be worth the investment, however if you are lighting the outside of your 7 bedroom colonial from top to bottom or a tree lined city block they may be worth the investment.

There is a lively debate online between real and fake trees but most agree that if you can have a potted tree this is your most eco-friendly option. We got ours at Stew Leonard's who tries to make you feel better about the freshly cut tree by printing on the tag that for every tree they sell, another one is planted. I have to imagine any self-respecting tree farmer does this since it takes seven years for a tree to become full grown, so while it helped allay any twinge of guilt as they tied the tree to the roof, it isn't much more the green washing by our everyone's favorite dairy farmer. That said, I can't with good conscience even engage in a debate about a fake Christmas tree because personally I would just opt out before bringing a fake tree into my home during the holidays, so all I can say is that if it is practical for you buy a live tree and plant it, do that. If not, then focus on recycling your gift wrap. Alternatively consider these other interesting albeit time consuming options. My personal favorite, a Christmas Tree made from plastic bottles.


Photo Credit Flickr by thefourthcraw


and by all means skip the inflatable plastic Santa for goodness sake.

Sustainable Gifting

Around 125,000 tons of plastic packaging are thrown away over the holiday season. Take your own reusable shopping bags when you do your shopping.

Make it yourself. If you have skills and time use them. Nothing is more special than a gift made by a loved one. My mother in law is talented at knitting, quilting and cross stitch and we are lucky enough to have a hand quilted Christmas tree skirt, personalized Christmas stockings and an Angle for the top of the tree so even though she can't always be here for the holidays we have her to thank for how warm and inviting our home looks around the holidays.

Keep it simple with one large gift instead of lots of little gifts. This is a tough one for me as I still equate how good a Christmas is with how long it takes to get all the gifts unwrapped. I've been known to wrap things that I've already used just to have more presents under the tree.

Shop locally from small merchants.

When buying presents, keep an eye out for those with minimal packaging, or items packed in recycled or recyclable materials (e.g. cardboard).

Another good choice is a Global Exchange fair trade store.

Give a membership or donate in the name of a friend to an organization working in a subject area of interest to them

Give a gift certificate for your time - child sit, or pet sit. Offer your talents, such as photography, financial planning, or hairstyling. Make dinner for someone or cook and deliver it to them.

Give an experience such as tuition for an unusual class. For kids, consider giving an environmental excursion, like a whale-watching or camping trip.

One of the best gifts I received in sometime was an Epicurious Tastebook. My mother in law made one for every woman in our family and it was a collection of all of our family recipes.

Collect photos and put together a photo album. Make a calendar for the coming year using your own photographs.

Give the gift that keeps giving a Community Supported Agriculture membership - Visit the Local Harvest site to find a CSA near you and purchase a share for a friend or family member.

Wrapping

Buy recycled wrapping paper, vintage or use Lucky Crow gift bags which offer a sustainable alternative to disposable gift wrap.

Reuse boxes when I packed up Christmas last year, I saved almost every box, ribbons and and reusable tags.

Buy cards made from paper and without lots of added decorations, as these cards cannot be recycled or just go electronic.

Then be sure when celebrating and entertaining buy organic, local and seasonal foods and avoid non-recycled disposable serve ware.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Healthy Sustainable Holiday Season!

At the Go Green Expo in New York the Power is Yours

The Freen and I attended the Go Green Expo in New York a couple weeks ago. As I was driving into the city (yes I see the irony) I decided to bring him along. Unsure I reminded myself that the whole point of my new pursuit is to achieve a better flow between my professional and family life. So there I was after 12 years in the events business, dragging my son along to a consumer expo designed for greenies to peruse the latest and greatest in eco-friendly products.

He was thrilled just to be entering the hotel. “Mommy is this a conference?...Mommy is this your work?” he gushed as he explored the hotel lobby. Excited by his excitement alone, I checked the stroller and boarded the escalator with a diverse mix of young urbanites, crunchy granolas and tourists.

It was very crowded and split between three levels…gotta love New York City venues. Somehow we managed to make our way through the throngs of people, me carrying the Freen for most of the day (yes my back still hurts), but we found some great products and people.

The first stand out booth was the Ella Vickers Recycled Sailcloth Collection. They offer handcrafted bags made of tough, recycled sailcloth from Americas Cup boats, Maxi yachts, high performance racing boats and cruising yachts. I saw a few people carrying them around so they seemed to be selling well despite being a little pricey.

Right next to her was Seltzer who carries stylish, unique and eco-friendly stationary, wrapping paper and notebooks. But more importantly they were giving free buttons to children. Freen picked the cupcake button...this would become a theme as the day developed.

Another company offering gifters eco-friendly wrapping options was Lagniappe Gift Wrap. They have a collection reusable fabric bags for wrapping which would be great for all those kids birthday parties we have coming up.

My favorite eco-friendly tote bag and definitely a top contender for the most social responsibility company was Global Goods Partners. GGP provides their partners which include global organizations with a commitment to community development direct access to new markets in the United States, increasing both their revenue and global awareness of their work. GGP uses proceeds from product sales to provide technical assistance and grant support to its partners, assisting them in building stronger, more effective programs.

Recycled Messenger Bag Origin: Cambodia Friends-International

On the organic clothes front there were two standouts for babies. The first was Kee-Ka, who offer eco-chic apparel and gifts made from organic cotton. They have a new line of socks that are simply precious and the sweat pea and cup cake designs are just too cute.

Obli Organics was the other clothing company with unique and stylish organic duds for babies. Obli stands for On borrowed Land, Inc which I think is very cool.

The adult clothes for the most part were either too hemp or too yoga for my taste but Tara Lynn Studio reuses clothes to make her beautiful designs and even has a line of eco-friendly wedding gowns.

Freen was good to point out some cool t-shirts for daddy at Partybots.

We were holding up quite well and even found a few booths with organic chocolate samples and then Freen saw someone with a cup cake. So we had to go the wrong way up one aisle to find the Change the World Together booth. The cup cakes were free and they were giving away Mrs. Myers laundry detergent and Whole Foods grocery bags with the purchase of a t-shirt. So on that day, Freen became The Cutest Person to Change the World and one happy cup cake eating kid. The cup cake however did not appear to be organic.

Nice and wired on the cup cake, we spent some time watching them demo natural cleaning products at the Shaklee booth where the Freen just about knocked over the entire display and really put the power of their cleaners to the test.

Although we were tired by the time we got there, the third floor was where all the fun stuff was. One highlight was the vegetable powered hummer from Massa Green Enterprises. They specialize in SVO/Vegetable Oil Conversion for diesel vehicles…read vegetable powered hummers.

Moving beyond the three Rs to the three Es, Educate, Entertain, Empower the last two booths left a lasting impression. The first because we’ve read it every night for two weeks, Think Green from Kids Think Big. It is a great book, with fun illustrations and Freen has already started practicing some of the green ideas. We were even lucky enough to get our copy signed by the author Jeanine Behr Getz.

But nothing could really compare to becoming an Official Planeteer, meeting Captain Planet and David Coburn the voice of Captain Planet who gave a great kid’s version of the Inconvenient Truth.

The Freen was fully educated, entertained and empowered and to prove it he keeps shutting off lights and refusing to brush his teeth to save water but most of all he really likes yelling The Power is Yours while he stands on his potty. So all in all it was a success. I met some great people, found some very cool products and spent some qt with the Freen.