Top 10 Ways to Have a Green Christmas
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.
Sue Princiotto came up with a great way to shop with a reusable bag that was fashionable and made in the USA. Go to http://www.whatsurbag-usa.com and check out the great bags made by Katrina Survivors and 5% goes to Hope House a charity in NOLA that assists the homeless. The bags are called its-laS-tik and come in beautiful flexible materials and two great sizes.
sueprince@whatsurbag-usa.com
BluegrassPrint.com is offering custom eco-friendly greeting cards.
[...] this holiday season? Consider these top 5 easy, eco-effective travel [...]
[...] this holiday season? Consider these top 5 easy, eco-effective travel [...]
Hi, preserving the essence of green Christmas is really wonderful. For a change let’s try these ideas to be lively. A green Christmas shows our love for our mother earth through using an earth-friendly stuffs while celebrating it with our family and friends. These ideas are much interesting and memorable.
These are some great tips for the holiday season! We should be using energy efficient lighting year round. Lighting is a large monthly expense, especially for businesses and commercial buildings. We can save year round by implementing energy efficient lighting technology into these buildings. The lighting used for commercial buildings is an important aspect when moving to an energy efficient building.The T5 Retrofit Kit is a great product to use for energy efficient lighting, which can save up to 70% on lighting expenses but also prevents greenhouse emissions form begin released into the environment. Check it out by going to this link: http://www.T5retrofitkit.com
Cool ideas! That’s a wonderful list. Gift giving this Yuletide season is not new to us but experiencing a new encounter can be very exciting too. To make it more enjoyable, why don’t you try giving an uncommon gift for your love ones. A simple gift but can be very useful. Like a stainless steel tiffin carrier. =)
[...] holiday cards this holiday season? Consider using an ecard instead to save paper & postage [...]
Buy handmade gifts! Shop locally! Support local artists!
Cheers and Happy Holidays from KapKaDesign
Great ideas, especially the gift wrap !!! We have posted our top 5 ideas – relevant more to South African’s but relevant nonetheless, especially with regards to number “6″ giving to those that don’t have (animal shelters etc…) http://www.etc-africa.com
Happy holidays all