Ah, the holidays. A time for pumpkin spice lattes, apple pie, and rampant consumerism.

Over the last few years as I’ve learned more about humanity’s impact on the environment (and the abnormally scorching summers we’ve had where there should not be), I’ve become increasingly upset by holidays, especially consumerist ones like Christmas (don’t even get me started on Mardi Gras). Plastic seems to be everywhere these days, especially when companies try to make their products look festive with shiny ribbons and iridescent cellophane.

My aim with this post is to remove some of the environmental impact of our favorite festivities, so we can keep the magic of the holiday season going for years to come.

Most Wasteful Holiday Activities

The reason the holiday season is so wasteful is because of the over-consumption of resources and tons of new plastic being manufactured. While there are a multitude of reasons for this, this article will focus on the following:

• Gift giving
• Travel
• Feasts

These seem to be the most consumptive parts of the holiday season, and with them in check we should be able to continue our holiday traditions for years to come.

Gift Giving

Giving presents is so rewarding, and yet so wasteful when done conventionally. Don’t worry though, there are a lot of ways to reduce its impact! I wrote a more extensive article on this here, but will summarize below.

Give non-physical presents

Take the “material” completely out of gift giving by giving something that doesn’t add anything to our environment directly. These can include gifting someone an experience (i.e. tickets to something, or a gift certificate for a massage), your time and effort (going for a hike or helping them with a project), or sending them some digital money.

This category can also include digital gifts like ecards, digital artwork, and software subscriptions such as Audible or Adobe. While online activity does use energy, many online platforms have started offsetting their carbon emissions and using green energy. It definitely makes a much smaller impact than physical products.

Sustainable physical presents

Sometimes giving someone a non-physical gift just doesn’t hold the same appeal as handing them a wrapped box with a surprise inside. If this is the case for you, there are still ways to lessen your impact!

Pay attention to the materials used in the item, including the packaging. When it comes to clothing (my specialty), you’ll want to stay away from synthetic fibers like polyester and acrylic, and go for organic natural fibers instead. If you do need to include some synthetic fibers (like in the case of sweatshirt fleece), look for recycled options. If you’re not sure where to start, check out my shop. All of the synthetic fibers shown there are recycled, and the rest are sustainable natural materials.

My shop does currently end up using some plastic packaging but I’m in the process of finding a POD supplier who is plastic free! If you know of one please let me know.

Do some research on the company that produces the item. Are they making efforts to offset their carbon emissions? Are they known for dumping toxic waste in our waterways? Do they treat their employees well?

Sustainable Gift Wrap

Make sure if you decide to wrap your gift that you wrap it in something recyclable, and preferrably recycled. Old newspaper is a good start. Stay away from shiny or glossy wrapping paper, as while those are sometimes recyclable, they still add new plastic to our ecosystem. For sealing packages, use things like cotton yarn instead of tape or plastic ribbons.

EcoCult mentions using the shiny inside of old chip bags as wrapping paper (see their article here for more ideas). Your giftee may be more excited about something wrapped in your trash than you can imagine!

Travel

A lot of people travel for the holidays, myself included. Transportation can have a big impact on the environment, but there are some ways to mitigate it without backing out of Thanksgiving dinner.

Take public transportation

There are a lot of different public transport options available in the US, and depending on where you live they may be even more abundant. Some are more sustainable than others, but anytime you’re traveling as a group in a single vehicle it will be more sustainable than traveling alone. Most people are familiar with the short distance public transit system in their city, but here are a couple of longer distance options you may or may not have thought about:

• Long distance busses. Greyhound services most, if not all parts of the US, and there may be more than just Greyhound as well. I would recommend this for any trips less than a full day, as sleeping on a bus is really rough.
• Passenger trains. Train workers are striking right now, but as soon as they are paid what they are due, trains should return to normal operation. I’ve personally taken the train on both short and very very long distances and love it. It’s my favorite way to travel. The longer you’re going though, the more delays there will be, so make sure to account for that. When I went from the US east coast to west coast and back, I ended up a full day or two later than expected in each direction. Sleeping on a train in coach is somewhat difficult, but doable for a night or two. I don’t recommend going across the entire US (5 days) like I did unless you get a sleeper car!

Everyone knows about flying already, so I’ll leave that be.

Organize a carpool

Similar to public transit, anytime you ride together you save on fossil fuels. Get together with a group of friends or family and travel together if you’re all going in the same direction. There are also ways to find carpools on Craigslist and other sites or apps if you feel comfortable with that. Bonus points if your carpool buddy has an electric car!

Stay closer to home

If you’re traveling for fun or for vacation (versus going to see relatives), consider a staycation, or at least somewhere closer to where you live. The less you travel the better, and you may find some hidden gems closer to you that you never would have known about otherwise.

If you are traveling to see family, organize the get-together at someone’s house who lives near the bulk of family, or if everyone is spread out, in the most central location. That way everyone travels the shortest distance to where you’re all meeting. Aunt Lucy can still make her fancy seven course dinner at Grandma’s house.

Feasts

This can be a tricky one, because traditions can be hard to break. That being said, there are ways to lessen the impact of your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, without upsetting anyone.

Better organize your potluck

A bit food waste issue can be when too many people bring way too much food to a potluck, and even more so, when they leave all the leftovers at the host’s house. Better potluck organization can help a lot with this.

Ask people to state in advance what they will be bringing so there aren’t duplicates. This can be done via a social media event, an online spreadsheet, or word of mouth. If some folks don’t want to bother with an online form but others do, have one person be the point person to fill in the details for them. You can even list on the spreadsheet how many of each kind of food you will allow so you don’t end up with an entirely salad meal. If people don’t want to specify because it will be a surprise, they can add “surprise meat dish” or something. Yay for communication! Can you tell I like spreadsheets?

Let people know it’s okay not to bring anything if they don’t want to. I can’t tell you how many potlucks I’ve been to that there are 10 different kinds of store-bought pie because everyone felt obligated to contribute. Most potlucks end up with way too much food in general! It’s okay if some people just come for the company.

Ask people not to bring single use items. A lot of people end up bringing things like plastic cups, paper plates, and napkins because they think it will help save on the host’s time doing dishes. A polite mention that you’d rather they not bring them will suffice.

Ask everyone to bring a food storage container or two with them for leftovers. If everyone takes home a little bit of their favorites, it’s all bound to be eaten.

Compost

Even if you don’t have a compost bin, there are ways you can compost your holiday leftovers.

There are apps you can use to find neighbors with compost bins and piles which they appreciate people donating their scraps to (check out sharewaste.com). Pay attention to the stipulations of your chosen pile as each is different.

A lot of neighborhoods and cities allow people to put food waste into their yard debris bin, and a lot of residents don’t even know it! Look up you local disposal company for details.

Switch out conventional ingredients

Without completely changing the dishes you serve, you can switch out conventional ingredients for more natural and sustainable options within those dishes. Switching out your grocery store turkey for a pasture raised turkey from a local farm may be a bit more expensive, but helps decrease your footprint by a lot, and is healthier for you as a bonus. Plan ahead and make sure you can get everything you need locally, organic, grass fed, and pasture raised. It can even turn into a game! Supporting your local farmers helps prices go down in your local area as well.

Use smaller plates and serving utensils

This may seem weird, but using smaller plates really works to help stop food waste. How many times have you filled up your huge thanksgiving plate with a second helping, only to get halfway through and realize you can’t finish? If your plate was half that size, you’d have cleared it off. People reassess how much food they need each time they go back, and your second serving eyes may be much smaller than your first serving eyes, especially if you haven’t eaten all day in anticipation of Nana’s famous corn bread casserole.

On a similar note, using smaller serving utensils can also help. Using a giant ladle to serve up each dish encourages people to take the entire ladle full onto their plate. If you have a smaller serving spoon, they will likely only take that much onto their plate. We would all love for our family to think this through fully while filling their plates, but alas, they will likely be distracted by the excitement of the day.

I hope this helps!

I wish you luck on your sustainability journey, and hope you are able to use these ideas to have a more sustainable holiday season than the one before. Small steps can make a huge difference, so do what you can and leave the rest for another time.