Green Options

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas: Gifts, Decorations, and Recipes that Use Less and Mean More by Anna Getty is a great book to help you get a head start on greening the winter holidays.

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas is a fabulous book full of tips, expert advice, crafts, recipes, decorating ideas and directions and pretty much everything you need to make the holidays more eco-friendly.

Have you been waiting for a green Christmas story for children? I found one. While perusing Barnes and Noble the other day I came across When Santa Turned Green by Victoria Perla.

Here’s the premise. Global warming is wreaking some havoc at Santa’s workshop. It’s causing a leak in the roof. Since Santa’s got a big in with the kids of the world, he calls on them to help him take action. The children in the story do small things like planting trees and packing their lunches in reusable containers. Santa starts using solar and wind power and wearing a Green Santa suit.

My first thought when I saw this book was, “ugh.” I don’t need something like this for my kids. They don’t need to be hit over the head with any more green-ness than I already clobber them with daily. But then I started reading some of the reviews from readers on various sites.

Mountain View, California-based startup CherryPal announced that it is now shipping a fully green desktop PC (the C114) as of December 2nd, just in time for it to be a perfect green Christmas present. Although it is a desktop, it is about the size of a paperback book - perfect for space limited computer users. It consumes only 2 Watts of power (the company’s website tells us this is about the same as a clock radio), and uses [...]

When I was a kid we had a felt advent calendar. My mom always packed it away with the Christmas tree decorations, so every year when we put up our tree in mid December it was my job to pin the first two weeks of ornaments on the felt tree. For the rest of the month whoever got to the calendar first would pin up a new ornament. Not only was it part of our tradition, it was a handmade craft that my grandmother made. 

My own kids only know the store bought advent calendars. They expect chocolate.

For years now I have been thinking about ways to lessen the excess and mass marketing culture that has been a trademark of the American Christmas season. Last Christmas, I wrote about ways to green your Christmas, and buy less stuff. When you think about the facts, it is truly appalling: Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Americans produce an extra 2 billion pounds of garbage PER WEEK. And how about this one (I am guilty as charged-) enough holiday cards are sold every Christmas season to fill a ten story football stadium. And one of my favorite ones, which lets me know how important purchasing natural, U.S. made wooden toys is: If every child under six received a quality wood toy instead of a plastic one, 17 million tons of plastic in the landfill would be spared.

You’ll find those facts in the new book, Green Christmas: How to Have a Joyous, Eco-Friendly Holiday Season by Jennifer Basye Sander and Peter Sander with Anne Basye. This little book is packed with ideas for how to have a less stressful, more meaningful and altogether greener holiday this year.