A Merry green Christmas

Make your Christmas green by selecting a real live tree, still in the pot and with roots attached.
The benefits are huge, you will be able to use the same tree for several years until it gets too large, then it can be planted in your garden or you could contact your community and donate it to a park. Alternatively you could rent a live tree, use it for the duration then return it for a fee.
A real live tree is definitely the greener solution, as it is fully reusable and could even be wood chipped and mulched.
Plastic trees are made in China or Taiwan and are not recyclable, their shelf life is at most 3 to 4 years for the better quality ones and if you consider the fact that they are made of non renewable materials and incur huge transport costs it is easy to see that a living tree is the answer. An added bonus is that the real tree has a lovely pine fragrance!

Buy a live Christmas tree still in a pot with roots on and you will be able to enjoy this same tree year after year, alternatively plant it in your garden and let it grow.

Make your own Christmas tree decorations:

-string up some popcorn and color it with natural food dye]

-Bake some cookies and hang them on the tree with some twine, ice them and they will look perfect.

-Do the same with some hand made chocolates

-Use fairy floss or spun sugar to make fake snow

Every Christmas I look forward to all the beautiful Christmas lights in and outside the house and I just love to walking through the streets and marvel at all the great light displays. Some are so extravagant that some people have resorted to using generators in order to cope with the extra energy demand on the grid.
The solution would be to use LED lights, they last a lot longer and use only a fraction of the power of conventional lights [10% of the energy consumption or ordinary lights], LED are a greener solution and they will save you money.
Use a timer to turn off the lights and try to remember to always turn off the power when you do leave the house.
This year try to go for quality over quantity, more lights is not necessarily better.

Instead of giving hugely costly presents, why not give the amount the present would have cost to a designated charity and make up little vouchers for each person telling them which charity has benefited from their "present".
Alternatively, give everyone a very small token present and involve family and friends and give a poor family a Christmas to remember.

Think of the yearly waste in plastic packaging and Christmas wrapping, not counting the cost of transporting all those goods, usually made in China.
Make a difference this year by buying local and reduce the amount you buy.
There are alternatives to the over wrapped plastic goods we usually see at Christmas. Try to give gift vouchers, make your own and donate one of your skills, for example try to offer a massage or some gardening.
Make a pot of herb seedlings
Give some home made wine or make your own herb vinegar, scented oils or chutney.
Scour the second hand shops and find a pre-loved treasure, wrap it in a pretty scarf or a piece of fabric.
The possibilities are endless, be inventive and you will have a lot of fun in being green.

We use so much gift wrapping paper every year only to rip it up and have it end up as land fill. Think how many entire forests are cut down just so that our gifts sitting under the tree look pretty for a couple of days.

Here are some alternative to purchasing Xmas gift paper:

Recycle all paper from previous gifts and the ones you are about to receive.

Use a pillow case, decorate it by tie dying or use fabric paints to personalize it

Use pretty fabric samples that can be reused for something else

Gifts of food like cookies, home made jam or candy could easily be put into recycled glass jars or tins, decorate them with pictures from old magazines or cover with fabric. I love to use the sacking from flour or coffee, tie it with twine and add your own gift tag.Voila!

Make fabric bags out of old shirts or dresses and use a fabric stiffener, they will look nice and can be used for something else after Christmas

Fabric shopping bags are brilliant because not only will you save on paper but you will encourage others to avoid plastic shopping bags

Look around yard sales and second hand shops for pretty scarves and use them as alternative gift wraps, they are great for cosmetics and soaps

Keep boxes and parcels and decorate them with cut out pictures from magazines