Fresh green Christmas links

Hi gang! I haven’t been in the mood for looking through the news this week, so I decided that this week’s links list was going to be all about eco-friendly things you can do to make your Christmas greener. Much more fun!

Firstly, I still stand by what I wrote a few years ago about Christmas: imagine what your ideal, meaningful and fun Christmas celebration would look like, make a plan to achieve it without last-minute rushing, and ruthlessly skip anything that doesn’t match your vision, even if other people object : )

This week I’ve seen a lot of green Christmas crafts for decorating your home festively. If you’ve seen or done anything similar, please let us all know in the comments…

Wendy from My Green Australia has some great ideas for holiday decorations that reduce, reuse or recycle.

Tricia at Little Eco Footprints has a twist on the advent calendar: 24 nature play and eco craft activities for kids.

Re-Nest has 10 DIY wreaths made using what you already have. Very pretty! They’ve also got great gift-wrapping suggestions, and some very useful tips for staying stress-free in the holiday season.

Finally, if you’re too busy for crafting, why not enter How Big Is Your Eco?’s competition to win some beautiful eco-friendly decorations from Polli.

Valentine’s Day is coming up soon

Yeah, I know: it’s a Hallmark Holiday, created just so we’ll spend money. And yes, we should really be celebrating our romantic relationships every day instead of waiting until February 14th each year.

But sometimes we let life get in the way, and we don’t always show our loved ones how much they mean to us. I always enjoy doing something a bit special for Valentine’s Day. Just because all the corporations want me to buy cards and gifts and wrapping paper and ribbons and a pile of other junk that’s going to end up in landfill, doesn’t mean I have to do things their way. My favourite Valentine’s occasions always have two elements:

Sharing a meal – it doesn’t have to be anything fancy, although this year I’m going to make it local and vegetarian (I’ll post a photo if it turns out well!). We cook together, with organic wine and some fair-trade chocolate for dessert with some of our favourite music playing. I’ve tried candlelight before, but sometimes it’s still broad daylight when we’re eating so it’s a bit silly!

Doing something fun and relaxing together – picnics, movies, the beach, watching the sun set, stargazing, whatever… as long as you can do it together, it doesn’t really matter what it is. This year the 14th is a Sunday, so we’ve got all day to hang out.

If you’re single, you shouldn’t miss the opportunity to eat good food and do something fun anyway. One of the most memorable Valentine’s Day events I’ve been to was when my friends decided that we’d go out together in a big group. We had a pasta dinner in a cheap and cheerful Italian restaurant, then went to a swing-dance class that had a Valentine’s special, it was a great night out.

Over the next couple of weeks there’ll be a lot of advertising telling us that the best way to show someone you love them is by buying jewellery, or kitchen appliances, or anything red with a love-heart on it. But I’m making plans now for a good meal and a day out, skipping the manufactured junk for shared time with someone I love. I feel like this isn’t just more eco-friendly, it’s going to be more fun.

Last-minute gifts

One last post before I take a little break over Christmas!

I’m trying to get my last-minute Christmas shopping done, and although I find it easy to buy for my neices and nephew, it’s much more difficult to sort out the grown-ups in my life! Like me, they don’t really need much in the way of new things, but we all like giving and receiving gifts as a way to show our love for each other.

One way to deal with this is to give consumable gifts: things that people can eat, drink and be merry with, but don’t hang around the house gathering dust the way a trinket would. Here’s my favourites:

• organic, Fair Trade chocolates – can be sticky in the Aussie heat though!
• organic wine – white wine usually goes well in summer, when we want chilled drinks, but Tarrango (chilled red) or champagne for New Year’s Eve can be popular too
• homemade biscuits – good old Anzacs, or something more fancy if you like
• infused vodka – vanilla vodka, chilli vodka or something similar for the people in your life who enjoy interesting cocktails
• fresh veg from the garden – tie a ribbon around a punnet of tomatoes, green beans or a few ears of corn
• cheeses – wrap them with some nice crackers and a fruit paste (or homegrown fruit), skip the cheese knife or platter (since most people who like cheese already have these)
• flavoured olive oils and vineagars – local and organic is best!

What do you like to do in these situations?

So soon?

::ahem:: I don’t want to scare you, but… Christmas is coming up soon! I saw decorations and wrapping paper for sale in the shops over a month ago, as is traditional for the Church of Retail Spending. But now I’m thinking that it’s really time to get planning for the holidays.

Of course, if the last-minute rush gives you a thrill, then all I can do is wish you luck! I’m already writing my lists, and planning lovely eco-friendly gifts for the people I draw in our family “Secret Santa” rounds. We haven’t worked out where we’re having Christmas this year, but it will most likely be my sister’s place because she has a pool and a bbq her husband made from a recycled 44-gallon drum (he’s innovative like that).

If you need a little help getting started, you might want to look at the series I wrote a while back “I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas”. I still use it to get myself organised.

Some new gift ideas for this year:

Men’s business shirts: from New Internationalist, organic and Fair Trade.

Keep Cup: reusable coffee cup, designed and manufactured in Australia.

A range of eco-jewellery at Biome.com.au.

MadeIt.com.au is an online store for handcrafted Australian goods, with quite a few eco-friendly options, including…

FlannelFings, a range of reusable nappies, bibs and other babies’ accessories, handmade from reclaimed fabrics.

And there are a few new options for the little accessories that make Christmas feel festive:

AMCS Christmas cards: We wish you a jelly-fish-mas! Lovely under-sea photography, funds raised to protect our oceans.

LED Christmas lights are much easier to find nowadays.

Treasure Bags is a range of reuseable gift bags suitable for kids and families.

Resolutions 2008

Well, let’s see how I did on my green New Year’s Resolutions that I made back in January.

1. Switch to reuseable bags
I think I did really well on this one! We’ve been remembering our green bags for grocery shopping nearly all the time over the last half of the year. And I use the Envirosax bag that Chris gave me very regularly. I liked mine so much I gave some to my friends for Christmas this year!

The Envirosax has been a real conversation-starter, too – I lost count of the number of sales assistants and other shoppers who commented positively on it. People always want to know how they can get one too. Maybe I should ask Envirosax for a commission, I think I’ve sent a lot of sales their way this year!

2. Reduce household water use by 25%
This one didn’t end up happening, really. We had plans for installing a dual-flush toilet, a waterwise showerhead and aerators on our taps, but ended up making other improvements to the house instead. Our water use wasn’t wasteful to begin with, so changing our habits didn’t have much of an impact. It’s a shame, but we’re going to try again next year.

3. Writing to politicians and businesses about green issues
I kept copies of all the emails I sent, and made a note of the letters I wrote. I did fantastically well for this one – over 2 dozen emails, and 3 letters. Some got better results than others. GetUp campaigns I took part in did well, mostly because they’re part of a larger action. And I think the letter-writing to ANZ and politicians about the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania did well, for the same reason. My most disappointing effort was the letter I wrote to my federal MP, because I only got back a form letter, which showed that he thinks recycling his rubbish (a service provided for free by the council!) is all he has to do to save the planet. Not unexpected, but sad all the same. Perhaps I’ll try to have a chat with him in person next year.

So I give myself a score of 66%. Not bad, but with room for improvement! How did you go on your resolutions? Have you made green improvements in your life this year? Every little bit counts – large changes are just small changes all piled up together, after all.