• REDUCE PAPER
• SAVE A TREE
• PREVENT WASTE
• CREATIVE WANTED GIFTS

REDUCE PAPER

• Send e-greetings to family, friends and business associates who are online. (Visit E-Cards.com for a wide assortment.)
  
• Save wrapping paper and bows for reuse. Or, if the paper is beyond reusing find out if your municipality will accept it for recycling.
• Bring your own shopping bags. Paper, plastic and cloth are all good; the latter two can be folded easily into purses and pockets until used.
• Consolidate your purchases into one bag rather than getting a new bag at each store on your shopping rounds.
• Use the comics or other colourful sections from your newspaper as wrapping.
• Make reusable cloth bags out of brightly-coloured fabric.
• Or better yet, think of gifts that don’t have to be wrapped at all: tickets to concerts, museums, or sporting events, gift certificates, house plants, or even gifts of your own time.
• Find imaginative ways to employ used objects - nails, thumb tacks, bits of foil, dried leaves - to decorate your packages.
• Save gift boxes and use them again. Many gift boxes fold down and take little room to store in a closet or cabinet.
• If you throw a holiday party, use Evite.com instead of sending paper invitations.

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SAVE A TREE

• "Live trees" are already dead once you buy them. Buy a truly live tree by buying a potted tree that can be decorated according to the season and will be around for many years to come.
• Alternatively, buy an artificial tree you can use for years.
• If you do buy a cut tree, recycle it or mulch it afterwards. Here are some ideas.
• Decorate your home - mantles, mirrors, door frames - with lights or wreaths and forgo the tree.

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PREVENT WASTE

• Make tree decorations from food or used materials. Some ideas: cranberry wreaths, dried apple ring clusters tied with a bright bow, gingerbread ornaments.
• Reuse packing cartons and shipping materials such as peanuts, wood shavings, shredded newspaper and bubble wrap.
• When buying gifts you will send by mail, pick items that are easy to ship and won’t require excess packaging.
• Drop off extra packing peanuts at local private mailing centers.
• When giving oversized gifts like bicycles or CD racks, instead of wrapping them in paper, just tie a bow around them.
• Make the wrap a part of the gift: Putting cookies in a flower pot or hiding jewelry in a new pair of gloves will keep your gift under wraps and the "wrapping" out of the trash.
• Compost your food waste. Fruits and vegetables and their peels, pits and seeds are all perfect for composting – a great natural fertilizer.
• Donate unwanted gifts, along with last year’s gifts that the kids have outgrown, to charity.
• Put outside Christmas lights on a timer and set them to turn on only when it is dark, and turn off before you go to bed.
• Buy a digital camera, which produces no waste compared to regular cameras and especially disposable cameras.

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CREATIVE WANTED GIFTS

• Think before you buy a gift. Look for items with less packaging, gifts made from recycled content or presents that are earth-friendly.
• Give a set of plain white, red or green cloth napkins and a roll of festive ribbon. The napkins can be dressed up with the ribbon for the holidays, then used plain the rest of the year.
• Gardeners will love an assortment of seeds, bulbs, gardening books or catalogues presented in a new planting pot.
• Give the "brown bagger" on your list a new reusable lunch kit complete with reusable containers.
• To teach the meaning of charity to young people, give a donation in their name to a charitable organization using JustGive.org.
• Give a "certificate" or "coupons" for a service to be performed by yourself such as babysitting or a massage, gardening for a month, cooking a meal, giving lessons on the Internet, or by someone else, like a diaper service.
• Or give a gift certificate to the movies or a restaurant. Put the certificates in a basket, jar or envelop that you've decorated with festive trim.
• Offer to baby-sit for a frazzled friend. Get out the ladder and hang the lights for a neighbour. Help an older relative with their holiday shopping.
• Take a friend to a concert or special festive event. Take kids ice-skating or onto the hills to play in the snow.

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