Our efforts of saving the environment, improving our behavior to help preserve the planet is important. So it shouldn’t stop over the Christmas holidays! So Fox Rent A Car gives you a few tips to go green during your Christmas holidays! Here are tips to help you be more green and still enjoy this great month of celebration.
Go Green with your wrapping
Christmas for most people, also often involves gift-wrapping. A good way to keep an eco friendly attitude during the holidays can start with this. You can go green with your wrapping by using paper made out of organic materials. If this might be hard to find another great solution is to recycle your gift-wrapping and gift bags. If you don’t have any, get creative! Make your own wrapping paper. By cutting and pasting images of catalogs and painting on newspaper and other paper material, you can create fun and colorful wrapping paper. You can also decorate a shoebox. Or you can use old and left over fabric, such as old curtains, or old sheets or shirts and create funky bags.
Go Green in your presents buying
Another way to go green during Christmas is by choosing the right gifts. A first step is to buy local. Then try to chose presents that are needed, useful and wanted. Food is always good. Buy organic, fair trade products. Chocolate, coffee, specialty cookies are always a warm gesture. You can also buy services rather than products. A Spa treatment , massage therapy, hair salon gift cards are becoming more and more popular. Speaking of Gift cards, they are another great idea of green gift. Instead of buy something someone doesn’t want nor need that will end up in the trash give them gift cards to stores everyone goes to, or where you know they usually shop…why not gift cards for green stores!
If you are crafty you can also make it yourself. Instead of buying a box of cookies, bake them yourself. Plus it will be much more appreciated knowing you put your time and effort in it! Finally, if you do buy clothes, chose brands supporting the green attitude.
Go Green Christmas Decoration
You guessed right! Keeping a green attitude over the holidays starts with how you decorate your house. Chose green, energy saving lights. Recycle your old lights and buy power efficient LED lights. They consume less energy and therefore are better for our planet, and still look just as good. Remember to put your lights on a time switch, so they turn off automatically during the night. For the tree, make your own tree ornaments or buy glass ornaments, rather then plastic. When you decide to make your own ornaments, it creates a fun and exciting memory with your children, saves you money, and preserves the world we like so much. Cut paper into snowflakes and make paper angels; bake cookies in various shapes and decorate them with icing to hang them on the tree; make snow flakes out of cotton balls, paint pine cones, there are hundreds of options to decorate your tree beautifully with self made ornaments… Here you can get some more ideas to spark your creativity for home made Christmas ornaments!
When you buy your tree, you have diverse choices: a fake tree with already included LED lights can be re-used over years and the light consume less power, or, a potted tree which can be planted and grow in your yard after Christmas.
Go Green with a better planning
Going green doesn’t happen over night and doesn’t happen alone. So let your invitees help you help the environment. When you organize your Christmas parties, plan ahead and provide a separate recycling trash for the rest and let them know what can be recycled and what goes into the regular trash. When you shop for your Christmas dinner, buy organic and local produce. If you guests offer help and want to participate, direct them to the right stores
Christmas also means connecting with your loved ones far away. Make your own cards, instead of driving to the store and buying plastic boxes of cards you will then throw away. If you don’t have the artistic gene in you, then buy them online, personalize them and print them at home. There are many websites offering great designs. And you can buy recycled paper to print them. Remember to ship them soon, so you don’t have to airmail them.
Note: You can also recycle your past gifts that you didn’t use or want by giving them to homeless shelters or the goodwill and other non-profit associations.
Having a great Christmas is not just about getting the family together, it is also about being together and helping together to preserve the world we live in. So go green for the holidays! And have a Merry green Christmas!
