eco friendly Christmas

[malkin]

I have some fabric wraps that I've used repeatedly and nice ribbons.

One year I sewed my dad's gift into the wrap.

[nc tam]

Several years ago we decorated plain brown shopping bags using construction paper, markers, paint, whatever we had in the apartment. Placed gifts inside and folded down the tops. We're still using some of them. Every couple of years we make a few more as some get gifted away. Wish I had thought to put the date on the originals as our favorites have quite a few years on them now.

[NoNo]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34365419...ience-science/ I don't know, my artificial tree is 20+ years old, not the "few years" they're claiming. Still going strong, too. But maybe literally going green is the better option

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

We have a couple rescue kitties (both adults, not kittens) that we adopted last February, so this will be our first Christmas with them. One is a 15# Maine Coon who is very curious and loves to be up high. He can jump like nobody's business and he's fearless. I have visions of him trashing the tree while we're at work. We've never had an issue with cats we've had in the past. Our house is small and there is only one spot where there's room for a tree. There is no way to close off this part of the house from the cats. Suggestions anyone?

Yep...do like we do, and get a tall cactus and decorate it as your xmas tree.
Our cats will not have anything to do with my cactii!

This picture was taken 2 years ago, the cactus is now about 50% bigger. Every year i have to get a bit more lighting for it, since it keeps growing.

[Eden]

Well, I wasn't sure if I was even going to put up a tree, but when I was getting cat food, just next door was a place selling trees that was giving a portion of the profits to the children's hospital where I work, and they had a tiny little one (its only 4.5 feet) so I was sucked in.

The cats had a great time sniffing and chewing on it for a little while, but they are slowly leaving it alone. I have a model train around the base.... it has been good for training them to leave the tree be. When they start looking like they are going to decide tree skirt slides are really fun, I turn on the train . They are getting the idea pretty quick. So far the only ornament that has been broken is the one I dropped.

[GLC1968]

Our cat never showed any interest in our tree except as a good nap place where the dogs would leave him alone:




Maybe he wasn't intersted in a fake tree because he had a world of real ones open to him?

[GLC1968]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34365419...ience-science/ I don't know, my artificial tree is 20+ years old, not the "few years" they're claiming. Still going strong, too. But maybe literally going green is the better option

I think that depends on where you are. Right now, I wouldn't doubt that a real tree would be 'greener' for us since we are surrounded by tree farms. The problem is that we already have a fake one and I sure as hell am not going to toss it into a landfill if it's still perfectly fine. We bought the fake one when we lived in Florida. The real trees available to us down there were trucked down from North Carolina - I hardly find that 'sustainable'...so we figured that a fake tree was the better option. Plus - fire was a real danger there because the trees were already long since dried out before they got to us (sometimes even sprayed with green paint to hide the brownness!).

Now we are stuck with our fake tree until we can find an alternate use for it! Christmas tree clothes line? Christmas tree bird feeder? Christmas tree goat scratcher? Hmmmmm......

[NoNo]

That's a good point. Certainly sounds like there's a northern bias to the study. I wonder if someone will come up with an artificial tree recyling program? There's got to be some use for the metal.

[malkin]

List your fakee on Craigslist!

[KnottedYet]

I use the same fake tree year after year after year.

This year my kiddo is TALLER than the tree! Shocking!!!!

(and I love those Wrapsacks! It's also very easy to make your own. The ones you make won't have tracking numbers, though.)

[badgercat]

The Little Tree will be the tree that DBF and I decorate this season in our first home together.

So... I guess the fact that the Little Tree has been in use for the past 30-some years makes it environmentally friendly enough.

Now that it's up and decorated, I thought I'd share a picture... the lights that were on it had a tag that said "03/1988" and weren't turning on this year (probably just a burned out bulb but I took it as a sign), so I indulged in some new bling--LED lights! They're very vibrant.

Behold, The Little Tree!