Green Christmas in September… Really?
September 18, 2009 by Jennifer
Each year I say – I should figure out a Christmas holiday tradition for my family that’s not only eco-friendly, but fun, and also something that everyone can swallow.
Facts:
I personally was raised with Christmas – trees, cookies, gifts, the whole darn deal. I liked it and as a kid thought it was mostly fun, but I never loved how hectic it was, and by the time I was in my early 20s I was sick of the whole planning perfect gifts mess.
By the time my son Cedar was born, his dad and I wanted to do something for the winter holiday season, but we couldn’t quite place what that was.
Since Cedar was born we’ve had years with Christmas trees and years without and even years with living trees. Years with big stressful get-togethers and years where we’d just chill with friends. We’ve had MANY years of trying to balance gift giving because we like the less is more idea, but just try getting people on board – it sucks. You say, please do not get me anything, and people just won’t listen.
What’s hard is finding a balance. You could be green by avoiding the winter holiday season altogether but that’s extreme and doesn’t really build any sort of tradition for kids. You could say screw green and have a big ol’ celebration with lots of bling – the other extreme. OR you can find balance. It’s finding a balance that everyone will agree with that’s hard because it’s not just your little household; it’s extended family, friends, co-workers, and more.
This year, I seriously want to make a change. I’ve managed to green up many areas of my life, but finding the perfect (or a good) green Christmas is one area where I could use some help. In a perfect world… we’d find some traditions to keep like organic cookie making day or giving gifts that are all green and homemade and personalized, and ditch the holiday traditions that aren’t working so well – i.e. extended family not listening when we say JUST ONE GIFT! Or maybe deciding to skip the Christmas tree forever.
In order to sort out my own family’s idea of the perfect holiday and to help readers along, I thought we’d get started early this year. It can take some time to plan a fun, meaningful, and still green winter holiday season. To get you (and me) going, following are some useful resources that can help anyone start planning a greener, more meaningful holiday season.
Two useful sites:
- Buy Nothing Christmas – an excellent kick off point. If you want to start practicing early you can ditch Black Friday and join up with Buy Nothing Day.
- The Simple Living Network
Two cool books:
I’ve got some more resources coming up as well as some tips for a green and meaningful holiday season. For now you tell me – what are your plans this year for a greener holiday season?
[image via stock.xchng]
HA! Last year I was really not in the Christmas spirit so one day when hubby was working, my son and I just used a big piece of wrapping paper and taped it to the wall. I let him help me draw a tree and then we glued stuff to it and drew stars and what not all over it. He had so much fun! It was really not fancy and totally embarrassed my mom, but that’s where I was at and that’s what I did. We didn’t have to buy a tree, move furniture to fit it in, water it, clean the needles or dispose of it. For gifts I tried to sew everyone cloth grocery bags (didn’t get them all done! but those people are getting the bags and produce bags too this year) and asked that people either follow our list or keep the gifts to usable things, like markers, soap, etc. It went pretty well, I thought…since we have more kids this year, we’ll probably have a tree, but hubby and I both agree it should be a table top one. Looking forward to your ideas!
OMG you have got to be kidding – last year Cedar and me made a paper tree with recycled green tissue paper and stuck that to the wall! That’s crazy. I really like the usable gift plan and the bag plan, although I’m not the best sewer so… my bags would take years maybe.
Thanks for mentioning Celebrate Green, Jennifer. Of course, there are tons of ideas in there, but I want to suggest that if people think hard about putting MEANING in the greening, they will come up with a lot of fun and amazing ideas. What I’m focusing on this year is taking every aspect of our celebration(s) and trying to find ways to infuse them with meaning.
It’s great for the Earth to avoid buying disposables, but how can I put meaning into PLATES? Last year, Corey and I came up with the idea of having everyone bring a special plate with them to our holiday dinners. Then during the meal, we can share what is special about the plate. It’s this sort of thing that holidays really should be about in my opinion. I look forward to reading all your readers’ ideas.
And of course, love the paper Christmas tree idea. I had a friend who had a whole wall done in chalkboard paint and drew a forest of trees there!
I love the chalkboard wall idea! Well, it might be dusty – fun though. I heard your ideas about plates on NPR in the birthday part piece (http://www.blisstree.com/articles/tips-from-npr-for-an-eco-birthday/), at least I think it was you – the whole get plates at a thrift store then take them back I liked that idea too. The hardest part for us is that we do think low-key can be fun, but so many of our friends and family get overly hyper, especially since Cedar was the first grand-kid on either side of the family. People want to spoil him, and it’s too much.
Have you ever made chalk yourself? I haven’t, but maybe it would be less…chalky, LOL? A white board door (which another friend has) could be a good idea too.
Yup! That was us on NPR.
I realize how hard it can be for friends and relatives (I’m a grandma too.) We’re very careful not to make a big deal of whatever we’re doing in the sense of making some big announcement…THIS YEAR WE ARE GOING TO…In general, it seems to be better to bring up the positive ideas first, then say, since we’re doing this, maybe we can skip that, for instance.
I don’t know if Cedar’s grandparents would go for this, but we don’t buy ours gifts except for books. We buy them experiences that we can do with them. For instance, just tonight we were talking about getting season tickets for the local children’s theater. Four kids plus two adults adds up to some pretty good money. This will be the gift for the grandkids for Christmas. Anyway, maybe you can get them thinking more in that direction. Special trips with him etc.? There are other ideas and approaches if this one doesn’t work
These are great ideas! I will definitely try them this year with the kids. Thank you for sharing.