Green Tip Tuesday: Are you dreaming of a Green Christmas?

The greatest thing about going "green" during the holidays is that you can completely simplify your life, get out of doing a ton of work, save money, and blame it all on being a good steward of the planet.  Here are a few green tips that will free up your time for important things, like baking (eating) cookies, and help the planet.

1.  "Green" gift wrapping.  The best way to green up your gift wrapping is by not wrapping at all.  This is a completely new concept to me who has been weaned on a steady diet of Martha Stewart bow tutorials and the belief that the more elaborate, the better when it comes to wrapping paper.  I'm converted though.  For young children, how about setting up their gifts in fun and inviting groups?  For older children, like mine, I'm going for the Christmas morning scavenger hunt.  Instead of wrapping most of my daughter's gifts, I'm going to have them hidden around the house.  I'm spending the time I would ordinarily be wrapping making up clues for her to follow to find her gifts.  I'll still wrap a gift or two in recycled wrapping paper, but only a few instead of all of them.

2.  Green decorating means using natural items like pine garland, pine cones, acorns, strung popcorn, dried apples, cranberries, nuts, and colored candies.  Take a glass bowl, fill it with red hot candies, add in a white candle: instant candle scape and the candies will break down naturally when thrown away.   Fill a vase with candy canes (unwrapped).  Let fewer items have greater impact by using lush greens and lots of ribbon, which can be used again and again each year.

3.  E-cards.  Forget the addressing, the postage, the work, the money, and the huge carbon footprint.  Go green, send e-cards, and sit back and relax.  Think you'll miss seeing a bunch of cards hanging on the wall?  Well, me too so I'm just going to try it this year and see if I really do feel deprived.  I'm betting I won't.  Feel like you need to send a holiday letter?  Email it!  Want to give family/friends pictures of your kids?  Make an online photo album like the ones available from snapfish.com.  You can password protect them so only your family/friends can see the photos, they can order any prints they would like while still viewing the entire album.  Green, green, green.

4.  Green gift giving is easy when you make use of the online gift cards available from places like Amazon.com, and eBay.com.  You can procrastinate until the very last minute, they're always the right size, they're never out of stock, and your gift recipient is guaranteed to get something they'll want.

5.  Finally, the greenest thing we can do this year is resist the temptation to fill our families' stockings with ...junk.  I'm guilty, I have certainly picked up all sorts of little tchotchkes for my daughter, especially on impulse: tiny pads of paper with kittens on the front, cheap, chemical-infused lip glosses in 10 different flavors, plastic jewelry she's never worn, sugar-filled gum in kind of gross flavors, cheap plastic toys - I've bought it all just to "fill" the stocking.  This year I'm resisting.  I know, I know, it's easier for me because my child is almost 12 and I'm certainly not judging anyone's choices, I'm just suggesting.

I'm trying all these things this year, just to see how it goes.  I love a white Christmas, but I'm really hoping for a green one.