ECO Christmas

     Holidays brings the best of us every year. But they also bring what seems like an environmentalist's worst nightmare and practically adding more waste to Earth: 
-tons of extra garbage, 
-millions of chopped-down trees, 
-megawatts of flashing lights. 
with a little effort, everything from holiday gift-giving to light-stringing can celebrated with minimal impact to environment too. 
Growing excess consumerism keeps only few companies happy as you buy what they want you to buy. Rampant advertisements, convincing you to buy their products, no matter if the are relevant to christmas or no. Loads of decoratives sold are cheap disposables and soon find their way to the bins. Challenge yourself to live without it for at least 2 weeks. Believe me you will not even remmeber the stuff you once found useful.

     This Christmas, lets make Planet friendly decisions. Start to rethink the way you want to celebrate the spirit of holidays. For it does not come from malls or media but from withing you.
     The noise and glitter of the malls have killed the real spirit of festival inside us, we have stopped being creative, you spend the most precious gift  in malls shopping and then in the billing counter "a part of your life". The time spent in the malls which keeps you away from your family can never be purchased back.
Shifting to a simpler and Greener Christmas will make you a happy tighter family.
The best thing around any Christmas tree is your family. Its they who make the festival happier. 


Greener ideas for Christmas:
1) Lights

• Use LED lights on year Christmas tree, they consumes less electricity and still looks nicer and good for environment and inexpensive. Also when you go to bed, remember to turn off the Christmas lights to conserve energy.
• Many people light candles during the holidays, instead of using a regular petroleum wax candle, get a soy wax candle, it last 3 times as long, is 90% better for the environment, and if you spill the melted wax it is easier to clean.

Fun fact: The first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree was the creation of Edward H. Johnson, an associate of inventor Thomas Edison. While he was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of today's Con Edison electric utility, he had Christmas tree light bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his Christmas tree, which was hand-wired with 80 red, white and blue electric incandescent light bulbs the size of walnuts, on December 22, 1882 at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

2)Tree

• Use a potted Christmas tree- Rather than buying a real tree thats been cut down, transported and then thrown away, purchase a large potted plant or small tree that can be used each year as your evergreen Christmas tree.Once it grows too big for the pot, just plant it.
• Rent a tree-Find a place to rent the trees.These trees are grown in pots, you can rent them and then return them when you are finished. Once the tree has grown big enough it is planted. 
• Purchase an artificial tree that can be reused for many years.

3)Decorations

• REFUSE to buy ornaments
• REUSE the ones you have, or even better
• RECREATE ... Make some. A fun family project to do, make it out of materials which was going to thrash can or out of nature it's always fun to make things at a family time. 
• Last with ornaments, if you feel you MUST buy some ornaments, buy recycled material ornaments from stores near you.
• Recycle all that is not reusable, if its natural decoration its even better they will not go to bin instead yo your garden compost.

4) Gift wrap 

• Wrap LESS or just don't wrap. If you wrap less presents it reduce the amount of trash. 
• Use recycled wrapping paper, brown paper (which you can recycle), or newspaper to wrap your presents.
• Careful when you you unwrap your presents, as we will use the wrapping paper,box, ribbons next year. Keep them in a box safe in your home until next Christmas.
• Try Furoshiki an eco-friendly wrapping cloth, versatile wraps almost everything. Using techniques similar to origami, it can be used for gift wrapping, grocery shopping or simply as decor. Choose from a wide variety of sizes and designs to complement your lifestyle.  It is reusable and multipurpose. 

5) Food

• When cooking Christmas lunch, keep lids on your saucepans - your sprouts will cook quicker and you will be saving energy too.
• Avoid keeping the oven door open when you check your food.
• Don't cook too much, let the spare food coll before going to fridge as this will help save energy.
• Christmas dishes can be a nightmare but waiting until you have a full load in the dishwasher and using a low energy or economy programme will help keep costs down.

6)E-cards

• E-cards are an inexpensive way to holiday greetings.
• If you really need to buy one, then buy the cards made out of recycled paper and soy ink.

7)Recycle everything

• Look for your local shops or supermarkets for recycling trees, fancy gift wraps, decorative's etc.

8)Shopping

• Santa's aren't suggesting you don’t give your loved ones presents this year. But why not make one or two of them, trade with friends, or buy locally. Think about the products you’re buying – what they’re made of, where they came from, how they got from there to here… and whether they’re actually going to make someone any happier.