Green Friday?

Okay, I dread Black Friday.    I dislike the crowds.   The traffic drives me crazy.   And the constant news coverage about crowds gathering at 2AM to buy something is over the top.     And I'm not even shopping.  I'm just trying to get home.

We consume endless amounts of fuel to drive to shopping malls and then circle around forever looking for a parking spot.    Then we buy endless amounts of gifts, packed into large plastic shopping bags, and trudge them back to the cars.  Then we drive them home, wrap them up in piles of paper, shred it all open on a few weeks later, and then---and this is what gets me going---everybody returns everything back to the stores for exchanges and refunds.

UGH.

I'm no Scrooge, so I still like to buy gifts for my friends and family for the holidays.  But I feel strongly we need to make our holidays as green as ever because it literally is one of the most wasteful times of the year.      So, here are some green tips that are kinder to the planet and will help you avoid the crowds for good.

1.  QUALITY GIFTS, not QUANTITY.    As a child, it used to be a competition to get the most presents.  It wasn't WHAT you got, but how MUCH you received.     This habit needs to be broken.    Buy someone a quality, well-made present that they need or really want and will use.     Maybe it's a set of those healthy non-stick Green Pans.   Or it's a case of wonderful organic wine.      Honestly, I would rather get one exquisite bamboo blanket then 10 acrylic ones.   You know?

2.  GIVE GIFT CARDS.    Look, there's some crazy percentage of gifts people receive that never get returned to the store.   So they sit in a closet for months and eventually either A: get tossed away or B: are donated to Goodwill.   We've all done it.    So instead of assuming your friend might like a Lord of the Rings crystal chess set, why not give them a gift card instead?   That way, they can buy exactly what they need... and there's no waste at all.   When in doubt, buy a gift card and wrap it up in an empty Altoid mint tin.

3.  SHOP ONLINE.  It pays to think ahead.   Everyone has e-commerce websites.    Click and choose your gifts online and then opt for GROUND shipping.   That way no gas-guzzling planes are being used to overnight your gifts.    Better yet: choose the United States Postal Service if you can.   If the mailman is coming to your house anyway, why not have them bring your gifts to you, too?

Finally, a little tip: when everyone's shopping at the mall, usually busy places are pretty empty.    Case in point: I'll be at the museum.  It's like walking around a private museum, just for you.   

Comments

[Jessica]

I thought I'd give a few more tips:

Buy handmade and/or fair trade. Make sure the person making your gifts is being treated humanely. Plus, generally, people really like thoughtful handmade stuff.

If you must go to the store, bike there. It will prevent you from overindulging and your carbon footprint will be smaller.

Wrap gifts in newspapers (Sunday comics are always fun) old calenders or even magazines. The gift can still look pretty, plus, when all the stuff is open, you have something to read. Remember to recycle.

[Jodi]

Well said!

This year, I am sticking with local, handmade, and/or internet shopping. I'm also making lots of edible gifts and, as a family, we are gifting ourselves with a green-ish vacation.

[Gin]

Yeah! Go for it!

This year I have decided to do one of the following unless I know for certain there's a perfect gift waiting at a box store (as much as I'd like to I can't make electronics, haha)...

- Make handmade items/food
- Buy handmade items/food
- Buy/recycle used items
- Perform or buy services (help a friend clean or paint... take someone to a ballet or a play)

BTW, maybe you might be interested... there is a website that's trying to inform everyone about the benefits of buying handmade:

www.buyhandmade.org

[Tammy]

Have you heard of Etsy's Trashion team? They're working to encourage people to buy recycled & to buy handmade - check it out!
http://www.etsytrashion.com

[sverde]

I've been working really hard this past year to divest myself of clutter. My mantra has been Identify, Gather and Remove! and I think I've been pretty successful, if I do say so myself.

[JulieZS]

Here here! I second that emotion. Thanks for reconfirming and re-emphasizing to me how important it is to try and change the whole holiday ethos. Not next year or some year in the future, but this year, right now.

[joanie]

Lovely sentiment. It seems with all the commercialism Christmas gets less Christmasy each year. I would love to have an all handmade Christmas, but something tells me my 9 year old boy won't be happy with something that's not electronic ( and I'm not that handy!)

[The Rev'd. oonagh Ryan-King]

this is about shopping, for those who still do the mall thing....years ago my mother decided she wanted more presents--she was like a kid at Xmas--so we began our gift-giving on Jan 6, Epiphany. i realise not everybody's Xan of course and this comes out of our own tradition even if we're way liberal....for us this shopping time for stuff that we had to go out for that's hard to shop online for--shoes, knitting yarn, other giftables that one has to actually see or size, then we caught the after Xmas sales. i've gotten great deals on Xmas ornaments this way, and super great deals on display ornaments that were damaged--and that we re-made or restored. we stopped using plastic and chopped down trees years ago, like 45 years ago, when i discovered that trees scream when you cut them down. so we now purchase a living tree--and since we don't put it up until 24 Dec and we take it down on 6 Jan, they're all still in pretty good shape. we plant the trees or plants or whatever or we give them to people with gardens...my first year in TX i collected tumbleweeds. we piled them together and decorated them. they were wild..and beautiful. the cats especially loved them

i just saw some great plastic decorations; they are plastic designs all tarted up and glittered and stuff. but they are "bows" of oak and pieces of coral and other "natural" shapes of nature. they're used as tree fillers. you stick them between the boughs/limbs of the tree. we're in panama now and i'd never seen them in the us before but i wasn't looking either. we gave all our heirloom ornaments to the children before we left. we were afraid they might get broken. so we've restocked here with stuff we've not made ourselves

this is the only way we buy "new" clothing, too. especially items like coats...catch the big sales for items we need but can't make or find in outlet stores or friends' closets, Out Of The Closets, and Goodwills

thanks
i love your blog/site/ideas...

oonagh+

[The Rev'd. oonagh Ryan-King]

this is about shopping, for those who still do the mall thing....years ago my mother decided she wanted more presents--she was like a kid at Xmas--so we began our gift-giving on Jan 6, Epiphany. i realise not everybody's Xan of course and this comes out of our own tradition even if we're way liberal....for us this shopping time for stuff that we had to go out for that's hard to shop online for--shoes, knitting yarn, other giftables that one has to actually see or size, then we caught the after Xmas sales. i've gotten great deals on Xmas ornaments this way, and super great deals on display ornaments that were damaged--and that we re-made or restored. we stopped using plastic and chopped down trees years ago, like 45 years ago, when i discovered that trees scream when you cut them down. so we now purchase a living tree--and since we don't put it up until 24 Dec and we take it down on 6 Jan, they're all still in pretty good shape. we plant the trees or plants or whatever or we give them to people with gardens...my first year in TX i collected tumbleweeds. we piled them together and decorated them. they were wild..and beautiful. the cats especially loved them

i just saw some great plastic decorations; they are plastic designs all tarted up and glittered and stuff. but they are "bows" of oak and pieces of coral and other "natural" shapes of nature. they're used as tree fillers. you stick them between the boughs/limbs of the tree. we're in panama now and i'd never seen them in the us before but i wasn't looking either. we gave all our heirloom ornaments to the children before we left. we were afraid they might get broken. so we've restocked here with stuff we've not made ourselves

this is the only way we buy "new" clothing, too. especially items like coats...catch the big sales for items we need but can't make or find in outlet stores or friends' closets, Out Of The Closets, and Goodwills

thanks
i love your blog/site/ideas...

oonagh+

[The Rev'd. oonagh Ryan-King]

this is about shopping, for those who still do the mall thing....years ago my mother decided she wanted more presents--she was like a kid at Xmas--so we began our gift-giving on Jan 6, Epiphany. i realise not everybody's Xan of course and this comes out of our own tradition even if we're way liberal....for us this shopping time for stuff that we had to go out for that's hard to shop online for--shoes, knitting yarn, other giftables that one has to actually see or size, then we caught the after Xmas sales. i've gotten great deals on Xmas ornaments this way, and super great deals on display ornaments that were damaged--and that we re-made or restored. we stopped using plastic and chopped down trees years ago, like 45 years ago, when i discovered that trees scream when you cut them down. so we now purchase a living tree--and since we don't put it up until 24 Dec and we take it down on 6 Jan, they're all still in pretty good shape. we plant the trees or plants or whatever or we give them to people with gardens...my first year in TX i collected tumbleweeds. we piled them together and decorated them. they were wild..and beautiful. the cats especially loved them

i just saw some great plastic decorations; they are plastic designs all tarted up and glittered and stuff. but they are "bows" of oak and pieces of coral and other "natural" shapes of nature. they're used as tree fillers. you stick them between the boughs/limbs of the tree. we're in panama now and i'd never seen them in the us before but i wasn't looking either. we gave all our heirloom ornaments to the children before we left. we were afraid they might get broken. so we've restocked here with stuff we've not made ourselves

this is the only way we buy "new" clothing, too. especially items like coats...catch the big sales for items we need but can't make or find in outlet stores or friends' closets, Out Of The Closets, and Goodwills

thanks
i love your blog/site/ideas...

oonagh+

[The Rev'd. oonagh Ryan-King]

this is about shopping, for those who still do the mall thing....years ago my mother decided she wanted more presents--she was like a kid at Xmas--so we began our gift-giving on Jan 6, Epiphany. i realise not everybody's Xan of course and this comes out of our own tradition even if we're way liberal....for us this shopping time for stuff that we had to go out for that's hard to shop online for--shoes, knitting yarn, other giftables that one has to actually see or size, then we caught the after Xmas sales. i've gotten great deals on Xmas ornaments this way, and super great deals on display ornaments that were damaged--and that we re-made or restored. we stopped using plastic and chopped down trees years ago, like 45 years ago, when i discovered that trees scream when you cut them down. so we now purchase a living tree--and since we don't put it up until 24 Dec and we take it down on 6 Jan, they're all still in pretty good shape. we plant the trees or plants or whatever or we give them to people with gardens...my first year in TX i collected tumbleweeds. we piled them together and decorated them. they were wild..and beautiful. the cats especially loved them

i just saw some great plastic decorations; they are plastic designs all tarted up and glittered and stuff. but they are "bows" of oak and pieces of coral and other "natural" shapes of nature. they're used as tree fillers. you stick them between the boughs/limbs of the tree. we're in panama now and i'd never seen them in the us before but i wasn't looking either. we gave all our heirloom ornaments to the children before we left. we were afraid they might get broken. so we've restocked here with stuff we've not made ourselves

this is the only way we buy "new" clothing, too. especially items like coats...catch the big sales for items we need but can't make or find in outlet stores or friends' closets, Out Of The Closets, and Goodwills

thanks
i love your blog/site/ideas...

oonagh+

[Vehid Digof]

Enviromental problems will change many traditions. I mean, we need to somehow compromise between tradition and straggle to survive in the globe. Now, we have less people cutting trees for Xmas. Similarly, we should "change". Those three that you have mentioned are good start points.