By Lisa Buell
If you’re like many, the holiday season is a stressful time. Shopping, social events and unrealistic demands on your time and pocket are a few of the causes. But they pale in comparison to the incredible stress this season puts on the environment.
The good news is that planning a holiday that will diminish your impact on the environment can also take the pressure off you and bring back more of the meaning, good cheer and spirit of the season.
In case you need a little motivation, here are a pair of statistics to ponder: Upwards of 5 million additional tons of trash are generated nationwide in the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Twenty-eight billion pounds of food get thrown away.
Doesn’t that seem just a bit overindulgent? But what can we do? There are so many things that need to change in order to create a sustainable world that it can be overwhelming. My suggestion is that you get a picture in your mind of your most beautiful and inspiring experience of nature, see it as nature’s gift to you, then put it on your gift list and choose, from the following list of ideas, a gift that you can give back. How big that gift is or how many gifts you give will depend on your resources. The important thing is to start.
Shopping: Selecting gifts online, through catalogs and shopping locally will save time, eliminate the hassle of dealing with crowds and conserve gasoline. (If everyone used just one gallon less during this holiday season, that small bit on conservation would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1 million tons.)
Gifts: Make gifts. It’s fun and a great way to spend quality time with the kids. Consider items such as food, candles, coupon booklets or gift certificates for time (babysitting, chores, errands, doing the dishes for a month, invitation to lunch after the holidays... the kind of gift everyone would appreciate). Buy gifts with little or recycled packaging. Include rechargeable batteries with toys. Donate to a charity or non-profit in someone’s name.
Wrapping: Consider how to make the wrapping part of the gift by using items such as a tea towel, basket or handkerchief. Wrap with pictures from calendars, maps, magazines, leftover fabric, last year’s cards or brown paper decorated with dried flowers or drawings by your children. Get those creative juices flowing!
Cards: Send electronic cards or postcards made out of last year’s cards.
Electricity: Don’t plug the lights in until dark. Buy lights with strands wired in parallel so when one bulb goes out the whole strand doesn’t.
Finally, for information on the Merry Mulch Program, how to get your name off mailing lists and other questions about conserving resources, call the Vermont Recycling Hotline at (800) 932-7100.
Have fun this holiday season, try something different and remember, giving is receiving.
Lisa Buell is a professional life coach who works with individuals and groups to reach peak performance and fulfillment in their lives and work.
Article posted for the week of November 19, 2001.