Sustainable Holiday Decorating: Growing Green Traditions at Home
Most of us these days (and especially my readers) are concerned with trying to make sustainable choices that nurture the world. And there are lots of ways we can make our joyful celebrations greener and more meaningful… we’ve got plenty of ideas for you! Read on for those, as well as thoughts and holiday meditations, unseen externalities, and creating traditions that celebrate renewal.
We’ve pretty much all been taught the three-R’s of sustainability at some point, but this holiday season (and afterwards) consider a fourth R… Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… And Remember hidden packaging!
Just because they threw it out before you bought it, doesn’t mean it’s not there!
What you see here is all of the layers of the styrofoam and cardboard required to get these plastic holiday deer decorations from China to Chicago. The emissions from the container ships are unseen but very real. The cardboard, at least, was crushed, baled, and recycled.
The shopping cart full of styrofoam is on its way to a landfill, where it will remain for somewhere between the next five hundred years to infinity. While it will photo-degrade into smaller microplastics if exposed to sunlight, in a landfill, we literally have no idea how long it will take to break down. And the styrene microplastic bits they will break down into isn’t “biodegraded” back into anything useful… it’s a bio-contaminant, working its way into the food chain and eventually poisoning all of our bodies, human and otherwise.
Do these deer look like they’re judging you? (“They cannot. They are plastic.” she says, remembering the IKEA commercial with the sad discarded lamp telling you to not feel bad, to go buy new things!). But maybe they should be!
I read recently that you have to reuse an artificial tree for 20 years before it has a lower carbon footprint than a fresh tree. So, most years, if we have a tree, we pick up a new needle-shedding fresh-smelling friend who will be in our house for awhile, then shelter the door of the chicken coop from cold winter winds, dropping carbon-rich needles onto the bare earth (to balance the high-nitrogen in the bird’s waste to make new soil), and what remains will eventually make its way to our solstice fire next year, and then have its ashes spread on the gardens.
Other years, when we have less money or less spoons, or both, we drape some lights and hang some lightweight decorations on our indoor Norfolk Pine tree and have a Charlie Brown Christmas.
We’re certainly not perfect! No one can be… But as we mark the turning of the year, it’s also a good time to reflect on our impact. The problems we face are too big for individuals to fix, but we can find grounding in small rituals and remembering the cycle of death and rebirth, and hoping for a future that is brighter.
Celebrate with things that can die and be born again. Celebrate life and mystery, and meditate on the darkness even as we bolster ourselves with bright lights and hot drinks and coziness. Notice that things which seem inert are not, and stop to ponder your small place in everything whirling- the clock, the days, the years.
Remember that we all return to the earth, in many forms and fashions, and that we are all made of the place where we are, of many places far away, and the distant light of a million stars, but mostly the closest one, our sun, that seems to ebb and wane while it rotates and we wobble around it, as it fuels and warms us and alternately gives us rest.
Celebrate these gifts each season, as we wrap up our shiny packages. Care for each other while we are here, and for those we have not even imagined yet.
Ideas for Sustainable Holiday Decorating
Go Natural!
- Buy a real or live tree, or if you have a green thumb, get a Norfolk Pine and reuse it each year! Use your live tree for a future bonfire (careful, they burn hot and fast), or take it to a community collection site to be chipped and composted or used to build fish habitat!
- Choose biodegradable, natural decorations, like real greenery (ethically harvested), poinsettias and amaryllis bulbs (you can keep these growing as houseplants and even coax them into blooming again next year, or at least compost them), pumpkins, gourds, and cornstalks, instead of plastic fake ones.
- Make garlands and ornaments with popcorn, cranberries, cinnamon sticks & star anise, straw or twigs and natural fiber twine, dried citrus slices & pomanders, and pinecones.
- After you’re done enjoying these indoors, hang them outside for the birds and squirrels!
Choose to Reuse- Shop Vintage and Second-hand!
- Keep using your old artificial tree or decorations instead of buying a shiny new one every few years. Embrace the imperfections!
- You can find sooooo much decor at thrift shops, Goodwill, garage sales, estate sales, Ebay, bin stores, and other resellers.
- Join your neighborhood Buy-Nothing and Freecycle groups… these often are a great source for holiday decorating materials as well as everyday good stuff.
- It’s also a great place to re-gift and declutter your own treasures that you don’t treasure anymore, or things that are no longer serving your household.
- Ask your friends and relatives if they have items that they are no longer using, or organize a holiday swap and shop each other’s stashes of decor and gift supplies!
- Did you buy a jumbo roll of wrapping paper that you’re tired of, or want to switch it up for your kiddos? Maybe you and a friend can swap rolls instead of buying new! And speaking of wrapping…
Wrap it Up… Naturally!
- Use plain brown builder’s paper or butcher paper and natural ribbon or twine for wrapping, instead of printed glossy papers that are often not recyclable.
- You can stamp or paint these to make them extra crafty, or leave them plain and elegant.
- A few years ago, I got tired of wrapping gifts, and purchased (though I could have easily sewn them) an assortment of fabric draw-string gift bags. TOTAL GAME CHANGER.
- Now, instead of spending a ton of time taping and cutting, we just use these fabric bags.
- You can pick a pattern or color for each family member, or use paper gift tags to tie labels on the drawstrings each time you use them.
- I’ve supplemented these with some colorful festive pillow cases that can be tied with ribbons or that zip closed, and some nesting re-usable gift boxes and metal tins that store holiday decor when not in use.
- We also reuse regular gift bags, especially for gifts outside our household (though the fabric bags can be a nice gift and might start this tradition for your friends or family too). It’s good to set a space limit for how many of these you’re going to keep, as they can get overwhelming. You can always put these on your Freecycle group if you find yourself with too many!
