Prince Edward Island: Have a Green Christmas

Have a "Green" Christmas

ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, the holiday season is an exciting and happy time of the year. Friends and family arrive to stay over and visit, food is prepared, decorations put up, visits made, and presents are created or bought and then delivered. Just keeping up with regular day to day activities is difficult and fitting in all the holiday plans makes it a true test of our organizational skills. For many of us, planning in advance is what ensures seasonal activities and events reflect what we value as the true meaning of Christmas.

These same values of caring and helping others are also needed to protect our environment. This year, a bit of the same planning and forethought used to make sure you get just the right gift for Aunt Gladys, could also be used to plan a 'green celebration'. Below are a few suggestions to help you start planning and enjoying a 'green' holiday season.

The Tree

Natural Island Christmas Trees are a beautiful, safe, and special part of a traditional Island Christmas. Visit this site for a list of local growers.

After the holiday season, consider how you will "recycle" your tree. Mulching is frequently available through municipal councils. Set your tree outside and decorate it with winter food for the birds. This might include pine cones coated with sugarless peanut butter and rolled in bird seed, popcorn, cranberries, apple peelings or balls of suet and seeds.

The trunk of the tree could be dried and used as firewood for the fireplace. Do not burn the dry branches or needles as they can coat the chimney and flu with a flammable tar known as creosote. Use small branches around perennial plants to trap snow that will protect the plant roots, save the stronger branches to use as garden stakes when spring comes. Needles and the smallest twigs can be composted.

The Decorations

If unable to completely give up twinkling lights on the tree, select low-wattage lights to replace your old lights when needed. Use colourful and interesting packaging that you receive in the months before the holidays to decorate a truly 'green' tree.

Kids love to do craft projects and these items can easily be recycled into decorations. Paper chains, paper ‘snowflakes', images from old Christmas cards, dried flowers from old arrangements, out of date costume jewellery, and buttons can all be used to make Christmas decorations.

Nature provides unlimited items that can be used for decoration - pine cones, berries, dried seed pods, twigs, feathers. All of these items can be composted when you are finished with them. Edible decorations are also an option. Gingerbread cookies, cranberries, popcorn strings, candy canes, dried apple rings, and cinnamon sticks would make a very tempting Christmas tree.

The Gifts

Make the wrapping part of the gift. Depending on who the gift is for, or what it is, wrap gifts accordingly; kitchen items in colourful tea towels, baby items in receiving blankets, metres of material for the sewers on your list, or a bright red tool box full of necessary items for the do-it- yourself types. And instead of a ribbon or bow, why not decorate the present with a handmade decoration that will become a keepsake and last for years.

If not part of the gift, then the wrapping can be unique without contributing to the waste stream. The coloured comics are a great way to wrap presents for kids. Last year's Christmas cards can be turned into gift tags. Natural items like a sprig of evergreen or pine cones attached to a parcel is very attractive and can be composted after unwrapping.

Consider 'alternative' gifts. Check for gifts in secondhand shops. Make donations to charities in someone's name. Pass on a family treasure to the next generation. Decide as a group that rather than exchange gifts you will give a gift of your collective time to a local charity.

These are only a very few of the many ways that the holiday season can be made into not only a 'green' celebration but for many, a more meaningful and caring event.