Christmas is a time when we celebrate family traditions, gather with friends and have many joyous experiences, and for many of us it is the most wonderful time of the year. But it can also have a dark side. According to the EPA, in the four weeks leading up to Christmas, household waste increases by 25%. That amounts to an extra 100 million tons of trash making its way to our landfills each week! That is an absolutely shocking amount of waste, and it affects our environment, our health, and our world’s future. Together, we can make small sustainable decisions that will help lead to big change. Consider it your Christmas gift to the Earth, and to the children who will inherit all this from us.

Connect with Nature this Holiday Season. Christmas is a time for giving and a time for family. What better time than now to start a family tradition of giving back to the earth and instilling the values of sustainable living to your children, friends, and community. Start an annual, earth-friendly, Christmas family tradition.

Decorate a Tree for the Birds by placing seed bells, suet, pine cones with peanut butter, and seed trays on any tree in your yard. To attract a wide variety of birds, use varied seed types such as black oil sunflower seed and wild bird mixed seed . This is a great activity for kids, and offers an important food source for birds during the winter.

An ideal way to make the Holidays more sustainable is to use a living tree as your Christmas tree.