Sustainable Christmas: Tips for Eco-Friendly Celebrations

Is a sustainable Christmas possible? Christmas is a symbolic date that marks a period of spiritual reflection and excessive consumption. Every year, the party is marked by food waste, which leads to high garbage generation. Additionally, people buy many products with a reduced shelf life.

How to Have a Sustainable Christmas

So, how about rethinking your habits and adopting a sustainable Christmas that prioritizes conscious consumption and more ecological attitudes? This is also a way to influence your family members or the people with whom you will share supper. Check out eight simple tips to have an eco-friendly Christmas with respect for the environment!

1. Consume seasonal and local foods

Seasonal foods must have fewer resources to produce than those of another season. Due to their abundance, they are more nutritious, grown in a suitable climate, and available at a cheaper price. Even better, make a point of buying organic food.

During the Christmas period, in December, seasonal foods are usually pineapple, plum, banana, and cherry. Other typical fruits include green coconut, apricot, fig, and raspberry. The season also features soursop, kiwi, pear, and orange. Lemon, lychee, apple, mango, passion fruit, and watermelon are commonly available. Other seasonal foods include melon, nectarine, peach, pomegranate, grape, chicory, chive, endive, and fennel. Additionally, there are grape leaf, mint, oregano, arugula, parsley, celery, zucchini, beetroot, carrot, mushroom, pepper, tomato, and green bean -noodles.

Furthermore, the closer the consumption is to the place of production, the smaller the environmental footprint. Consuming products grown near residential areas significantly reduces the pollution emitted by vehicles transporting goods. Losses resulting from the degradation of food in this process are also reduced. Followers of the practice of consuming locally are called locavores.

2. Don’t put lights on live trees

Just like humans, Christmas trees need to “rest” during the night. The absence of light also played a role in the evolution of these beings and the seasons. For example, the leaves fall in winter to save the tree’s energy.

If it were summer all year round, a tree’s life expectancy would decrease. It would need to make more extraordinary efforts to keep its plant organism. Placing lights on trees prevents plants from “resting.”

Also, what is more serious is that some people nail light bulbs directly to the trunk of trees. This can prevent the transport of nutrients and be fatal for the individual plant. In that case, a tree that would live 250 years is reduced to 30.

I prefer safely decorating the concrete environment (thinking about you and the house). When choosing ornamental light bulbs for your sustainable Christmas, I like LED light bulbs. They consume less energy and have several color options.

Another help is that, unlike ordinary light bulbs, connecting several chains of LED lights is no problem. Burning one of them will not affect the performance of the others. But remember that everything must be turned off at bedtime to avoid fires.

3. Make your ornaments or use live fruits and plants

Christmas coincides with summer, a time when, in almost all regions, it is rainy. So, it is easy to find leafy plants that grow on sidewalks. The city hall will soon remove them, as they are considered weeds.

What is on the sidewalk looks ugly, but in a well-made arrangement, it can look fabulous. You can find gorgeous flowers on the sidewalks. These include the small purslane and dandelion. Don’t confuse the flower—yellow—with the seed pompom, which is white. You can also find foliage and tiny charming mosses. Some ruderal plants, like dandelion and purslane, are even edible and are called unconventional food plants.

Use natural fruits and leaves to make sustainable Christmas wreaths and decorative items. How about using cherries or slices of dried fruit like lemon and rosemary leaves? Also, being biodegradable, they are elegant and personalized and contain the natural scent of rosemary. They are much better than the plastic alternatives. The plastic options gather dust in the closet. They take years to decompose after being discarded.

This can be applied when setting up your Christmas tree. Instead of buying plastic trees or cutting down real pine trees, how about putting together a sustainable choice? You can make this using dried leaves, a home plant, recycled materials, and old fabrics and clothes. Put your creativity into play and try to recycle and reuse as many objects as possible on your Christmas tree.

4. Need packing? So use creativity

These days, there is no excuse for wrapping gifts using plastic. Instead of this type of packaging, you can use cardboard bags (offered in some stores). You can use fabrics. Personalized glass jars (to be reused) are a tremendous other. You can also use newspaper, cardboard boxes, eco-bags, string, and cloth ribbons. Use all of these and none of the plastic packaging. The correct packaging is essential for a sustainable Christmas!

According to the information in the IPCC report summary, the human population must adhere to a new food model. This new model suggests reducing the consumption of livestock products like beef, pork, and animal milk. This change in the dietary model is economically, socially, and environmentally healthy. It reduces the risk of morbidity and mortality due to overconsumption.

Animal protein intake (including fish) has a more significant socio-environmental impact than a vegetarian diet. It is less healthy because of pesticides and other harmful substances.

6. Do you go shopping? Take a purse or eco bag!

When is the time to do your Christmas shopping (if you need it)? It’s the same story as at the market: take your returnable bag or purse. After all, by logic, sellers will deliver their items in different packages. At the end of the shopping trip, there will be no fingers to hold so many bags.

It is indeed entirely cultural in our country to give objects as Christmas presents. If you think this is the best choice and the recipient will use it well, that would be great. But what about when the gift is a mere formality and, once opened, the person forgets it somewhere?

In this sense, it would be more worthwhile to have provided the person with a more valuable experience. A unique experience enhances enjoyment and provides memories for a lifetime.

You can offer your children an experience by donating your time, a park, or an unusual game. Instead of buying something material to give as a Christmas gift, try to offer experiences. A massage in a fantastic place, a trip, a course, a show, skydiving, etc. You can buy gift certificates and let the person choose if you need to figure out what they like.

8. Give a conscious gift

Make the confident choice to buy eco-friendly products. When donating clothes, choose items from sustainable fashion brands to make a positive impact. It’s a different type of gift, prioritizing locally made, worker-friendly, vegan products with a lighter environmental impact.