I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas

“I’m Mister Green Christmas, I’m Mister Sun.

I’m Mister Heat Blister, I’m Mister One-Hundred-And-One!

They call me Heat Miser…  Whatever I touch—

Starts to melt in my clutch!”

The easiest way to care about the environment on Christmas is to not celebrate the commercial version of it.  You could keep it religious (or secular humanist or something).  What is the fun in that, though?

For those of us that do celebrate Christmas in the commercial/decorative sense, we have to reflect on the fact that such celebrations do have a cost to the environment.  I associate Christmas with a pretty significant amount of waste.  An obvious example: a lot of gifts are given that end up in a landfill.  This post is dedicated to the environmental issues raised by Christmas along with possible ways to address these issues.

• Turn off the Christmas lights. Decorating a house with Christmas lights is a lot of fun, especially when your roommate Greg does all the work.  Leaving the lights on all night, though, drains a lot of energy.  This is probably not even worth the energy usage because most people are sleeping in the early hours of the next day (1 to 5 AM).  Further, if no one gets out to turn the lights off soon enough, the lights will be on during some of the daylight, which is definitely a waste.  With the Sun out, it is difficult to even tell if lights are turned on or off.  The best solution is to turn the lights of before going to bed at night.  Another solution would be to purchase a power control device that automatically turns the lights off at a certain time.  The second solution would probably still drain some electricity though, since the control unit would have to be plugged in all night.
• Use a fake tree. There are a number of benefits to using fake trees.  First, fake trees will not bother people with certain allergies.  Even if you are not allergic to anything in trees, one of your guests may be.  It would be a courtesy to avoid this problem all together by using a fake tree.  (If you are allergic to the materials used in fake trees, I am afraid you are simply out of luck!).  Second, you could always purchase one of those funky looking silver fake trees that were popular in the the 1960′s/1970′s.  Those trees usually come with this color changing spotlight that makes the tree look really cool.  Third, and finally getting to environmental reasons, a fake tree means that one less real tree will need to be cut down.  A living tree can help breathe in the excessive carbon dioxide in the air.  Finally, a fake tree can continue to be reused for a long time.  Since it only comes out once a year, it will be pretty safe from wear and tear.  Even though there may be some issues with the material being recyclable or not, you should not see very many fake trees in the landfill.
• Do not buy people ugly sweaters. If you do not have a good gift idea, maybe a gift card would be better than just giving the person some random sweater or novelty gift.  At least with a gift card, that person will be more likely to purchase something that will be useful rather than wasteful.  I would suggest something like a hug or kind words but in this consumer society that would probably only earn me a “cheapskate” label.
• Wrapping paper best practices. First, purchase wrapping paper from recycled material.  In this green paper obsessed society, that should be widely available.  Second, after presents have been opened, send that wrapping paper to recycling rather than the landfill.  I cannot imagine how much paper waste is created on Christmas day.  Finally, use less paper by consolidating certain presents into one package.  I know this will make it seem like you have given less gifts to a person, and it will also cut back on the amount of time spent opening presents.  That may cut down some of the fun of Christmas morning, but I have an idea that could help replace some of that lost fun.  Maybe people could hide their presents like easter eggs throughout the house!  As an added bonus, if this bad economy has caused fewer presents to be purchased, then someone could always use the excuse: “I am sure I bought you more presents, but I do not remember where I hid them.”

Merry Christmas!

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