Merry, Green + Bright: Sustainable Holiday Guide

With each coming year, many folks are looking at more ways they can make their holiday season more environmentally friendly. The holidays are a time for celebrations with friends and family, but they can also often bring financial stress. For us, a sustainable holiday includes environmental sustainability as well as personal financial sustainability. Breaking our habits of overconsumption leads to less stress and less mess - making our holidays much more merry and bright.

We’ve provided a short guide to give you some ideas on making your holidays a little more merrier, a little bit brighter, and a lot more green.

1.) Trim your tree & be plastic free. Decorating your home for the holidays makes daily life feel a little more special when there’s a touch of magic in our surroundings. It’s so easy to decorate your home and tree with items that won’t end up in the landfill. Choose a few ideas from below on how to make your own decorations from compostable materials.

• Cut out star shapes from orange peels and string them as garland across your mantle or on your tree. If you have small cookie cutters in different holiday shapes, this makes a fun activity for small children to punch out different holiday motifs.
• Cut snowflakes, stars or trees from brown paper and paint or dot patterns on them with with food colouring. After the holidays are done, these work great for ‘browns’ for your compost bin.
• Go retro with a popcorn garland! Pop some plain popcorn and string the pieces on cotton string. After you have used it, take it outside and string on a tree for the birds to enjoy.
• Make a pomander. Pomanders have been around since the Middle Ages! All you need is an orange, some whole cloves, and some cotton string. Create whimsical patterns on your orange by studding cloves into the peel, and then tying the string around the orange to hang from a doorway, tree or pop it in a decorative bowl. Pomanders act as natural air fresheners as well as decorative pieces - you can play around with citrus fruits besides oranges too. They’re a great craft for the entire family, and you can even create monogrammed ones to hang beside everyone’s stockings.
• Use branches trimmed from conifers to add to vases around the house. Jazz them up by making small cranberry garlands to twist around them, or leave them bare for a minimalist vibe. Remember to put water in the vase to keep them fresh through the new year.