These days store owners think about Christmas at an earlier and earlier time, while the rest of us bemoan how commercial our holy day has become. But for a Person of The Planet, thinking early could actually be a wonderful opportunity to plan for a higher way of celebrating Christmas, a way to give to all who inhabit this very special planet. By planning now, we have an opportunity to celebrate Christmas in a way that benefits, rather than harms our Earth. What if this year we ask our POP question, "Is this good for the planet?" while making our plans for how to carry out this year's gift-giving and decorating, card-sending and gatherings. In our plans we could include the well being of God's creation - our Earth and all the creatures for which our planet provides.
I've come up with a few ideas for "greening up" the various ways we celebrate Christmas. I'm
sure you can think of many more!
For Gift-giving, here are a few thoughts:
Let the money you spend on gifts do some extra work for the earth by buying gifts from charitable organizations that work for the environment, such as the Sierra Club, Friends of The Earth and Global Exchange. To use less carbon-creating energy and less pollution, we can give gifts of service and time, gifts that are hand-crafted or baked by us, or that others in our community make and sell, rather than giving unnecessary mass-produced "stuff" made of environment-harming materials in harmful ways involving harmful transportation. To buy ecofriendly gifts, you can find several websites with many products for sale. Here is one: https://eartheasy.com/gifts ("Eco-friendly gifts for adults and children alike")
Gathering and Exchanging of Gifts
For the actual gift exchange, here are two ideas: a white elephant party, where people exchange a desirable item they already have; or a secret pal gathering, where family members and/or friends bring only one gift and each person selects one gift from the offerings.
As for Feasting:
What if no animals were eaten on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day?
Card-Sending
Do some of your card-sending as e-cards, and when sending paper cards use recycled paper
products. Also (if you can find it) use recycled gift wrap, or create your own imaginative, beautiful ecological wrapping.
Decorating:
Turning off the tree lights when no one is around to see (unless you have a solar powered home,
of course!)
Make a tradition of using and keeping a potted living tree instead of buying a newly cut tree
every year.
And speaking of tradition, wouldn't it be great if we started now to dream of a Green Christmas based on Green choices , a life-giving kind of Christmas, that would eventually become the tradition for our children, our grand-children and all the great-grand children in the future beyond our own time?