May All Your Christmases Be Green

Christmastime is the season of giving so why not give back to she who gives to us each and every day: Mother Earth. Each year, 38 million miles of ribbon, 600 million tons of CO2 emissions, and thanks to the growing attention the sustainable design market has received, there are a myriad of ways to reduce waste and increase efficiency amongst all the landfill-destined gift wrap, energy-sucking Christmas lights, and CO2-generating shopping traffic.

1. Deck your halls with LED Christmas lights. I'm a Christmas light fanatic even though we all but twice decorated our home's exterior while growing up and never used more than 100 lights to wrap our tree. (My parents made sure we could spend more money on gifts than electricity to run our lights.Indeed, less meant more.) Well this is my new family's first year in our brand new home and we'd like to join our neighbors in decorating our home's exterior for the holidays. Thankfully, energy-saving LED Christmas lights are now available! A bonus: for sunny climate areas like Hawai'i where we live, solar-powered LED lights are also on the market. LED (Light Emitting Diodes) lights produce more light per watt than incadescent bulbs and do not contain mercury like fluorescent lights do. Their extremely long life span (nearly 100 times more than incadescent light bulbs) will guarantee that you won't be stuck with an annoying strand of half-dead Christmas lights. Home Depot carries a 300-light garland for $8.99.
2. Don't forget to turn your lights off. You've probably seen a neighbor or two leave his festive lights on throughout the day. Perhaps he forgot to turn them off the night before or when he left for work in the morning. By purchasing an automatic timer for as little as $9.99, you can avoid the same money-costing mistake. Also consider paring down your display. You don't really need to run your lights 24/7 from December 1st to December 31st. Perhaps just an hour or so a few nights each week. We have a very beautiful wreath and a simple "Happy Holidays" banner illuminated by our existing solar-powered front porch lights. On the weekends, we turn on our slightly more decorative Christmas house lights. Again, less is more.
3. Send electronic greetings. Now as a graphic designer and general admirer of pretty things, I can't truthfully say that I prefer special handwritten cards to mass emails and impersonal e-cards. But as an environmental and general seeker of simplified living, I find a balance between using both. For our very close family and friends, we send our holiday greetings printed on recycled paper. (This year we are supporting Hallmark's RED campaign whose proceeds support the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa.) We send e-cards to everyone else but with their own special message. Other ideas would be to send holiday DVDs or setup a personal family blog that you can update with holiday greetings instead of printing and mailing individual family newsletters. Photobucket.com allows you to make customized online slideshows complete with snowflake and other Christmas graphics.

4. Shop green. There are so many wonderful products that in some way reduce environmental impact. I like to make purchases online so that they can send the product directly to the receiver. This translates into fuel and cost savings. We look for products that use recycled materials, use less energy, and/or suppot a local artisan. Check out my favorites this year:

5. Wrap it right. For all my visual creativity and manual deterity, I'm admittedly not very good at gift wrapping. I used to distract from this fact by finding the shiniest and most decorative wrapping paper I could find. Often the inks used to print these papers contain harmful chemicals that eventually end up in landfills when the wrapping paper is discarded. Use recycled gift wrap or simply reuse your own from the year before. This year, Hallmark is offering product(RED) Christmas gift wrap with inspi(RED) words and designs.
6. Recycle, reuse, reduce. The 3 R's of sustainable living certainly apply to the expected piles of Christmas leftovers. The food leftovers from your cooking can be turned into compost which will supply your home garden with rich nutrients. The wrapping paper can be used again. Many cities offer Christmas tree recycling programs. For a couple years, I had a Christmas tree recycling "business" (mind you, I was like 12 years old and had to recruit my uncle's truck and my dad to drive) that offered to take down and haul Christmas trees and even vacuum or sweep the home afterward. This made sure that Christmas trees in my area were recycled instead of dumped, and some of the money I made was donated to a favorite charity (and yes, to fixing my bike). If you don't have a Christmas tree recycling program in your area, you can chop your tree to pieces and turn the entire thing into mulch and/or fire or hobby wood.

The thing about doing whatever we can -- big or small -- to take care of our environment is that it inevitably pays us back tenfold. So have yourself a merry green Christmas now.