Love Christmas and love the planet. The annual holiday dedicated to a celebration of consumption doesn’t have to preclude showing some goodwill toward the Earth.

Christmas indulgences almost always involve copious carbon dioxide emissions but without being a seasonal spoil-sport here are some ways to have a great rejoicing and reduce your festive CO2 production.

Let’s start with the symbol of Christmas – the tree. A trip to your local plant nursery to buy a live native potted tree is the best option. Planted in your backyard after the holidays, the tree will help absorb CO2 emissions for years. If you don’t have a backyard, you can donate it to the local parks department for replanting.

There are ways to assure the tree endures the shift from outdoor to indoor air (and vice versa after Christmas) so be sure to follow the nursery’s instructions.

Contrary to the belief that using artificial trees saves our forests and farmlands, the Canadian Christmas Tree Growers Association claims that tree farms are most often located on land that would not sustain food crops and at least three seedlings are planted for every tree harvested.

A one-acre live Christmas tree farm can remove up to 13,000 kg of airborne pollutants per year and produce enough oxygen for 18 people every day.

A study in the late 1990s at the Institute for Air and Environment in Sweden analyzed the life cycle of a natural and an artificial Christmas tree. The results demonstrated that a natural tree, locally grown, is five times more environmentally compatible than an imported plastic one.
When it comes to a live cut tree versus an artificial tree, consider that artificial ones are likely manufactured overseas and transported a great distance to your living room. These PVC plastic trees are made from oil – a depleting resource – and there are concerns about the strictness of the environmental regulations governing their manufacture.

Live cut trees are usually grown in a local or nearby tree farm and their purchase will benefit the local economy. When it comes to disposal, most municipalities have a tree recycling (pick-up or drop-off) program that will shred your tree for valuable compost.

Colourful seasonal lighting is probably the most visible sign of Christmas. Be sure to opt for LED (light emitting diode) lights for both inside and outside your home. Not only do LEDs use 95 per cent less energy than traditional lights, they will last up to ten years – twice as long as the best fluorescent bulbs and twenty times longer than the best incandescent bulbs.

Remember that lighting displays are best viewed at night. Use timers to limit lighting to no more than five evening hours a day.

Did you know . . . . . To illuminate the average home with 250 incandescent bulbs for five hours a day throughout the month of December, it would cost approximately $12.50. To light that same house with 250 LED lights, your total cost would be about 60 cents.

If you’re buying new LED lights this year, FortisBC PowerSense will enter you into a draw for one of 20 LED purchase rebates up to $50 each. Click on the “Bright ideas! for the holiday season” link on the www.FortisBC.com web site.

In terms of food miles, it takes an average 48,000 kilometres to get Christmas dinner to your table. If you choose locally grown foods for your holiday meal, you will be decreasing your greenhouse gas contribution by an average of 12.9 tonnes.

The holiday shopping spree is frustrating for many. It inevitably leads to overspending and mass consumption that takes its toll on our stress levels, our wallets, and the planet.

Instead of spending frantic days at the mall buying last-minute gifts, why not find a way to simplify the holidays by realizing the best gift is not always the most expensive one.

Give a home-made, handmade gift such as a batch of cookies, a hand-knitted sweater, a framed photograph, or a personalized recipe booklet or calendar. Choose a subscription to a topical magazine or tickets to a local theatre or musical presentation. Suggest a dinner out with your friends instead of exchanging material gifts.

Get creative and give useful gifts such as a cleaning service for a busy parent, an organic food delivery service for a health-conscious friend, or a spa treatment for a stressed-out relative. Fair trade or green gifts include a message of consciousness with them.

Initiatives such as Buy Nothing Christmas (www.buynothingchristmas.org) show that we can celebrate Christmas without buying anything at all.

You can also make a difference to someone in a Third World country through the online alternative giving campaign at Oxfam Unwrapped. Your donation will have an impact on people living in poverty.

When you’re wrapping gifts, avoid the mass-produced wrapping paper, much of which is unrecyclable and will end up in landfills. Instead wrap presents in reusable bags, children’s artwork, old maps or the comics section of the newspaper.

In addition, reducing packaged decorations and excess food, reusing Christmas cards and packaging and recycling used cans and bottles from your festivities, you will be keeping your waste out of landfills, which contribute one-quarter of the methane emissions caused by human activity in Canada each year. Methane is 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and responsible for 1.2 million tonnes of Canada’s GHG emissions each year.

If you keep carbon consciousness on your mind, there’s no reason your Christmas season has to be environmentally unfriendly.