TheGoGreenBlog.com

If your are looking for ways to green up your Holiday celebration this year, look no further. Here are the top 10 green tips to make your Christmas as eco-friendly as possible.

1- Lights: Switching to LEDs (light emitting diodes) is 90% more efficient than incandescent lighting. LEDs don’t get as hot as traditional lights, lowering the risk of fire, and if one bulb goes out, the rest of the string still works. They last longer, too.

2- Trees: Fake trees are reusable but are made from petroleum-derived sources and often shipped from abroad. Real trees, for their part, are typically sprayed with lots of pesticides. Organic Christmas trees are tough to come by. If you opt for a real tree, be sure to bring it to a local recycling center, where it can be chipped for mulch or used whole to stabilize wetlands. A better choice may be to purchase a live, potted tree, which can be planted outside after the holidays. Evergreen varieties such as pine, spruce, and fir work well in many regions.

3- Gifts: Giving experiences, like a subscription to the opera, a tennis lesson, or dinner at a chic new restaurant are excellent alternatives material gifts.

4- Gift Warping: Make the wrapping of the gift part of the gift, something that can be used for another purpose afterwards, like a scarf, reusable bag or even a tablecloth.

5- Celebrate Christmas at home: Avoid the extra emissions from traveling by plane or car, and plan your celebration at home this year. You’ll be helping reduce global warming simply by reducing your pollution quotient.

6- Send out emailed Holiday cards: Consider switching to emailed holiday cards to reduce your landfill waste. You can send photo and holiday e-cards using sites like Blue Mountain.

7- Use soy candles to decorate with: Decorating your living and dining space with soy candles is an eco-friendly option, and you’ll find plenty of fragrant pillar candles, votives, and floating candles to complement your look.

8- Pick out natural or organic Holiday décor: From bamboo placemats to homemade napkin rings, make a commitment to go green by decorating with an eco-friendly touch. Making Chrismas decorations at home is another way to get the whole family involved in a creative project.

9- Use reusable shopping bags: When our shopping picking up all your gifts & necessities for the big day, make sure you bring along reusable shopping bags.

10- Give Back: Donations to a favorite cause are always appreciated. If family members are so inclined, you might organize a Habitat for Humanity project. Sometimes just being together with your loved ones is the best gift of all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Family & Baby, Gift Guide, Holidays, Home, Shopping Guide. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.