21 Ways to Make Your Holidays More Sustainable
So many of us have ambivalent feelings about the holiday season. Let us all try to be a little more kind, a little less wasteful, and a bit more mindful. Wishing peace of mind for all.
—Pamela Herron, commenting on a Trackless Wild post in 2022, “If I Get to Decide the Fate of Christmas”
This year I’d like to propose for all of us the three questions raised in the comment above.
How can we be a little more kind?
How can we be a little less wasteful?
How can we be a bit more mindful?
A Little More Sustainable
I hope to answer all three questions, to some extent or another, in thinking about how to make our winter holidays more earth-centered and environmentally kind. Here’s a list I’ve started.
Focus on connections and on connecting and on ceremony.
Create experiences—go to your town’s Christmas Eve concert, for example.
Sing a lot.
Buy no gifts.
If you buy gifts, give one per person, not many.
Give gifts that are consumable, biodegradable, necessary, cashable, experiential, and/or recyclable.
If you buy a material good, buy the highest-quality, longest-lasting version possible.
Don’t guess what someone would like. Find out.
Give money.
Buy from local makers.
Use recycled or homemade wrapping paper. Use cloth (Japanese-style here) or cloth bags for wrapping.
Gather pine cones, snippets of cedar, holly, and other natural materials for crafting your own decorations. Make your own vine wreath.
Put up a wooden tree. Use boughs instead of an entire tree. Use a houseplant for a tree. Rent a tree. Buy a secondhand plastic tree from a thrift store. Purchase a live tree and plant it in your yard after the holidays are done.
Hand-make tree ornaments.
Purchase secondhand ornaments from a thrift store.
Stay off airplanes.
Use LED Christmas lights.
Don’t forget to grandly tip your service providers, the folks who bring your mail, deliver your packages, care for your yard, teach your children, deliver your groceries, and pick up your trash.
Look people in the eyes when you wish them a Happy Holiday.
Take time to rest, meditate, do yoga, attend church, pray, enjoy nature, take walks, and breathe deeply.
Celebrate the Winter Solstice.
Add To the List
I will gladly plump up this list with your suggestions.
An addition to your list
- Donate food, funds, and/or care items to local food banks.
- send cards, made or purchased, to seniors in retirement homes and to veterans in VA hospitals
- donate food and treats to local pet pantries.
- feed the birds supplemental birdseed during winter and plant regionally indigenous plant berry bushes for them in the spring.
- shop local to support your individual community’s economy.
- volunteer in non profits, hospitals, schools, pet shelters
Noel
I would keep Christmas this way:
Nothing retail, no glitter lights or tinsel;
Nothing artificial, nothing made.
This nativity eve against the low sun
I would pilgrimage in the fields and woods.
Along my way I would collect
A bundle of sweet dry grass;
In the woods, break off
A fresh pine bough rich in sap.
Next, visit an old cemetery
And there collect a twig of holly,
Then a sprig or two of ivy. Nothing more.
At dusk I will make my way home.
In the late evening by a fire
I will read St Luke’s story,
And lay my offerings on my table—
Fresh grass, pine, holly, and ivy.
At midnight I will light a single candle,
Sit quietly, and listen
For the songs of angels.