Eco Tips – Christmas

24th November 2022

• More is not always good – enough is better!
• The financial value of a gift is not the same as the value of the gift, nor does not equate to the  amount of love you have for the recipient.
• You might agree with friends and family to source all your presents from charity shops – the charities gain, and if anyone receives something they can’t use, it is easy to pass it on again via another charity shop!
• You might opt to give charity gifts such as sponsoring a puffin, planting a tree, twinning a toilet or equipping a child with warm winter clothes. 
• Reuse last year’s wrapping paper ( or make a note to keep this year’s for reuse).
• Reuse brown paper (often comes as a space filler in delivery boxes) which you could decorate with potato prints. Equally newspaper with coloured string is effective (choose sheets with a nice picture). 
• Use eco friendly/ non plastic sticky tape or  use string as  that can be reused.
• Make gift tags from last year’s recycled cards or simply buy some coloured card and cut it into squares or rectangles.
• If you make your own Christmas cards why not make them as postcards avoiding the need for envelopes. Email news letters rather than printing out round robins. Add a picture and make your email into an e-Christmas card.
• Make your own decorations. Cut up coloured paper (pages from colour magazine, strips of reused  wrapping paper etc) to make paper chains or pleated chains. 
• If you collected autumn leaves earlier in the season, strings these together to make a decorative chain. 
• Tie together pine cones, decorative twigs and to make vertical hanging decorations.
• Make pleated paper angels, origami stars, reindeer,  or Father Christmases. For a series of activities making Christmas theme decorations you can watch this YouTube Advent calendar – https://youtu.be/HhSwBrGRqJE
• Use champagne corks and felt to make Christmas elves – https://youtu.be/Er7POBLRDOY
• Rather than buying a tree collect some decorative branches and arrange them in a large vase (add stones to ensure it is bottom heavy) and then add your tree decorations. 
• Make a wreath from greenery from your garden or tie into a bunch with  a cheerful ribbon (door decorations don’t have to be circular).
• We tend to generate most food waste over the Christmas season. Make a list of what you need and stick to it. If you do add in extra potatoes etc – just in case – make sure you use them before buying more. (We dread not having enough but perhaps forget that by Boxing Day plus 1 many shops will be reopening).
• If you like a tradition roast bird, try and source one that has been compassionately reared, ideally organic. Maybe this could be the year to investigate a vegan alternative complete with all the trimmings of roast potatoes and parsnips, sprouts, cranberry sauce and stuffing. Cook enough to have left overs to enjoy on Boxing Day.
• If you haven’t yet made mincemeat there is still time and it is very easy. Making your own mince pies will avoid a lot of waste and/ foil and plastic. https://greentau.org/2021/09/09/count-down-47/
• Christmas puddings are also easy to make. If the 7 hours of steaming puts you off, you can steam then in a slow cooker half filled with hot water. 
• Plan for a walk on Christmas Day in  a local green space – the exercise and fresh air is a good tonic and it is a chance to reconnect with the natural world.