Well that was tough! There are so many ways not to be green at Christmas and I feel that as a family our score was probably about 3 / 10: “must do better”!
Wrapping paper. I had good intentions to make fabric present wraps etc etc, as per those good people on Facebook, but in the end settled for recycled and recyclable paper from Oxfam. The non plastic tape that I had ordered from &Keep didn’t arrive in time so I ended Christmas day removing plastic sticky tape from the pile of wrapping paper in the living room! Little use for this year was my plea to rellies that next year we could all avoid glittery and shiny cards, paper and tags. It pained my to throw those in the bin.
Food. We spent a fortune on an organic turkey and bacon, and bought all the veg from the farmers market. So was feeling good. Totally let down by the plastic tubs on shop bought Christmas puddings and trifle. Note to self - give up work and be a domestic giant next year and make it all from scratch. Male family member spent literally months making and nurturing an enormous Christmas cake from organic ingredients (which come in plastic bags of course).
Presents. My brother loved his eco gift bag (I think), which included bamboo loo roll, and a paper packet of toilet cleaner. I hope he realised I was celebrating the fun of eco ideas with him. Totally failed to persuade the teenager to have a second pair of sea-plastic trainers and ended up buying (a fabulous) pair of leather and plastic ones which will end up in landfill for a thousand years. Went for buying books from the wonderful Blackwells Bookshop in Oxford for everyone else - the mistake was doing it online because they send every book in a separate parcel in a separate van!! Next time - GO to the shop, by bike!
Chocolate. Adult male in the family tried hard to avoid palm oil when buying stocking fillers but ended up with a ridiculous amount of plastic packaging around some very expensive and delicious chocolate.
Best thing about working on climate change all year it turns out is that you can switch off the gloomy social media feeds and focus on family life for a few days. Merry Christmas!