Although the holidays bring out the best in most of us each year, they also bring with it tons of extra rubbish, millions of chopped-down trees and megawatts of flashing lights. You can do your part this festive season by making small changes, advises Rory Murray, Marketing Director of Tuffy Brands.

Murray suggests visiting your local nursery and hunt for a real Christmas tree. The great thing about this is that you can plant the tree afterwards helping you off-set some of your festive carbon footprint as well as adding to a special memory of your Christmas.

He offers some tips as to how you can add to your green Christmas by making your own decorations, gifts and taking care of all the trash that comes with this time of year.

Decorating:

  • To decorate your 'green' tree, why not get the whole family involved in the fun of creating beautiful tasty biscuit decorations to hang from your tree.
  • Used CD's and DVD's are great for window decorations; apply some paint, beads and ribbon and turn them into ornaments.
  • Use natural elements like pine cones, which you can decorate; add glue, ribbon and other crafty elements to create angels or some earthly garland. Be sure to compost your leftovers at the end of the holiday. String sweets, popcorn and liquorice all-sorts onto cotton and hang on windows and trees.
  • Turn last years' holiday cards into recycled cards for this year or redecorate, add crafty elements and hang as decorations.
  • Convert plastic containers and glass into snowmen and angels.

Recycle Holiday Gift-Wrap And Decorations:

  • Save on buying gift-wrap by re-using gift-wrap you have saved from previous occasions or think out of the box and get creative by using materials such as old pillowcases or t-shirts, which you can paint.
  • According to the Recyclers' Handbook, half of the paper consumed each year is used to wrap and decorate consumer products. The annual trash from gift-wrap and shopping bags totals over four-million tons. If everyone wrapped just three gifts in reused paper or fabric gift bags, it would save enough paper to cover 45 000 soccer stadiums.
  • Store-bought Christmas cards are rich, elegant and expensive. They also consume a huge amount of natural resources for a throw-away item. It's estimated that in the US alone the amount of cards sold during the holiday season would fill a football field 10 stories high, and requires the harvesting of nearly 300 000 trees. Homemade cards may not be as professional, but they are more personal and just as appreciated. Making the cards is also a fun activity for the family.

Sustainable Giving:

  • Air spritz and foot sprays are fun and personal gifts. Scout your local charity or second-hand shops for interesting bottles or recycle other bottles. To make: Put five drops of your favourite essential oil into a 100ml bottle of distilled water. Shake and then enjoy the aroma. A good choice is sweet orange or vanilla essence, which will not only scent a room but assist with refreshing your mood. Ylang Ylang or lavender is also a good choice as this floral aroma soothes and calms. You can also make your own foot spray by adding a few drops of peppermint into a bottle of distilled water.
  • Dried fruit snacks are healthy and great looking gifts. Creativity is endless for the way you choose to present this. To make: pour various dried fruit and nuts into a bowl and mix. Then pour into nice looking jars or old interesting containers. An alternative is to use different kinds of colourful sweets.
  • Grow your own flowers or plants to give as gifts, you can decorate the pots and personalise them for those special people.

Enjoy The Countdown:

  • Make your very own advent calendar and turn your junk into treasure for the countdown to the festive season.
  • Take a scrap piece of wood; paint it with a coat of white paint. Age it slightly by using some sandpaper to give it that shabby-chic look. Mark off a grid of 4 rows of 6 dots, and evenly space them; mark the dots with a pencil. Then hammer a nail onto each dot, leaving enough sticking out to hang things on.
  • Gather different numbers from 1 to 24 and do the same with miscellaneous items you find lying around the house (buttons, stars, keys, game pieces), tie a string to each item. Place on the board and each day you remove one item of the represented day.

Recycle:

You will be left with huge amounts of rubbish to dispose of, both on Christmas day and even more so on New Years day. Be sure to recycle your rubbish. If you haven't got a home recycling centre now is a great time to sort one out. Get yourself four different bins; glass, plastic, paper and metal and sort your trash. While you are at it make a small change and use refuse bags that are made from 100% recycled materials especially those with more than 70% from post-consumer waste.

So before you rush out to decorate, purchase and consume follow these tips to help you and the environment through an eco-friendly festive season. Happy holidays.