An Eco-Friendly Christmas

Updated July 28, 2007

Winter holidays are wonderful celebrations, but they unfortunately seem to come with a lot of waste. To make this year's Christmas (and other winter holidays) more eco-friendly, consider adopting these practices:

Fake or Real?
If you already have a fake tree, use it. Even if it's looking shabby, you can fix it up by adding garland and branches to fill in the gaps. You can even use it in your yard or on your porch if you don't want to use it in your home. Eventually you can use the branches to make wreaths, and you can even get creative with other materials in it.
Decorate with live materials.
Plastic or metal flowers, Christmas trees, wreaths, tinsel, and garlands are convenient, but they require storage space, and eventually we end up throwing them out. Using live materials requires no holiday decoration storage, and they don't end up in landfills if used properly. Plant a conifer tree in your yard, and every year, use trimmings from it to make your own wreaths, garland, and ornaments. If you get one that produces pinecones, you can decorate with those as well.
Purchase live materials from sustainable farms.
I know it seems like the holiday thing to do; go out into the woods and cut down your own Christmas tree, but the best thing to do is purchase your Christmas tree from a sustainable Christmas tree farm to avoid damaging wilderness habitat. The same goes for fruits, nuts, and other plants and plant products that you use to decorate your home.
Use edible decorations.
Decorate with fruits, winter squash, pomegranates, herbs and spices (such as rosemary and cinnamon sticks) and nuts. Bake firm cookies (if they're too soft, they'll won't survive the decoration process), decorate them with royal icing, and use them as Christmas tree ornaments, or set up a festive plate with a pile of holiday cookies. Make a gingerbread house. Hang candy canes and big lollipops everywhere. Spend an evening stringing cranberries and popcorn into garlands. You can even string up apples (with a heavy cord or wire).
Put old decorations to good use.
Use the pine needles from your Christmas tree as mulch. Cut up the wood and let it dry for a year, and burn it in your fireplace next winter (if you have a wood stove, which I highly recommend for efficiency and versatility, you can heat your home and cook some winter comfort food at the same time). No fireplace? Rent a wood chipper and turn your tree into mulch.
Skip the store-bought wrapping paper and make your own.
You can use newspaper or paper bags decorated with a winter or Christmas theme. You can use a towel or blanket to wrap a gift basket. You can put your gift in a decorative tin, box, or basket that can be reused. Play a game with yourself to see how many gifts you can wrap without using store-bought wrapping paper.
Use reuse shipping materials.
If you need to ship your item, use boxes that were sent to you as well as the packing peanuts and such.
Make your own cards and gift tags from recycled materials.
If you have a paper shredder (and you should), you can shred up your junk mail and create homemade paper to use to make gift tags and cards. You can also use scraps of old clothes (the ones that are just too shabby to donate to charity), natural items from your yard, and anything else you have laying around to make or decorate your cards.
Switch to LED lights.
LED lights use much less electricity than standard lights. Don't forget to put those lights on a timer, so you'll never forget to turn them off.
Make gifts instead of buying them.
Make your own chocolates, gourmet cookies, wood and fabric toys, crafts to decorate homes, ceramics, clothes, bags, items for pets, games, and so forth. You'll immediately reduce the use of plastic, packaging, and other associated sources of waste and pollution.