Have a green Christmas

This year, there's no need to let Christmas get you stressed and leave you skint. Friends of the Earth's green Xmas fairy is on hand with some ideas that will help you to put the love back into Christmas and go easy on the planet – as well as your purse strings. Here are some of her ideas for presents, parties and decorations that won’t cost the earth.LOVE VOUCHERS AND OLIVE OIL - MAKE IT LOVE

• Make some personalised favour vouchers to give to your loved ones. These could promise breakfast in bed, help in the garden, or even to do the washing for a week. Or if it’s someone particularly close you may want to make your love tokens a little more racy. ;)
• If you're talented in the kitchen, you could make chutneys, cakes, or chocolate truffles as presents. Or make your own flavoured organic olive oil, adding dried chillies, garlic or herbs to a pretty bottle and filling it up with oil.
• Make someone feel special by making them a personalised recycled paper photo album of all your treasured snaps.
• Encourage wildlife and practice your DIY skills by making a bird box for a friend or relative. www.bbc.co.uk

GOING RETRO - BUYING WITHOUT BLING

• Amazingly we chuck out 125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging at Christmas. Make a dent in this landfill mountain by choosing things with as little packaging as possible and recycling where you can.
• Instead of buying products, treat your friends and family to a special experience such as a cookery course, annual membership to a gallery or a weekend at a spa. If you don't get to spend much time together you could buy your friend an experience that you can enjoy together – like gig tickets, theatre tokens, or tickets for a trip to the continent on Eurostar.
• For a group activity, how about a trip to an organic farm followed by a meal made from their produce e.g.: www.riverford.co.uk.
• f you've got a big group of people to buy for, cut down on the stress of choosing presents by organising a 'Secret Santa' - agree a gift budget which everyone must to stick to, pick one name each out of a hat, then everyone only has to buy one present.
• For budding eco-enthusiasts, 'Save Cash and Save the Planet', published by Friends of the Earth is packed with ideas on how you can save money and help the planet. www.savecashsaveplanet.co.uk
• Go retro - try flea markets, antique jewellery and vintage clothing shops for second hand gifts. You'll be giving a unique present, as well as recycling.
• Encourage composting by buying your green fingered friends a wormery. It's a great way of turning food scraps into good quality compost and saving on the amount of waste that goes to landfill. http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk
• Buy a Standby Buster for the gadget addict in your life. The Standby Buster is a remote controlled electrical socket that lets you switch appliances off completely so that they use no electricity. Leaving them on standby unnecessarily uses electricity costing you money and contributing to Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions. http://www.standbybuster.com/
• Buy your friends download vouchers instead of CDs.
• Instead of buying DVD's give your pals a subscription to a DVD rental service such as Lovefilm so that they can enjoy having the new releases to their door all year round. www.lovefilm.com
• Help to protect Britain's remaining woodlands by dedicating a tree to someone with the Woodland Trust. www.woodland-trust.org.uk
• Think about quality when you're buying your Christmas gifts: don't fall into the trap of buying something cheap and cheerful that will need replacing in a few months.
• Order your Christmas gifts from Natural Collection catalogue of green gifts. This year it won The Observer Ethical Awards for the second year running. www.naturalcollection.com
• If it's a good read for all the family you want then visit Friends of the Earth's online shop. We have a great range of books full of information and inspiration to make a real impact and every purchase helps to fund our vital work. Click on the link now and take a look at our top ten Christmas gifts. http://www.foe.co.uk/shop

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY - KEEP IT LOCAL, COMPOST YOUR SPROUTS AND USE YOUR LEFTOVERS

• Opt for seasonal local food and drink. A traditional Christmas dinner is made up of seasonal produce. Buying your food from a local market or grocer helps the local economy and cuts down on food miles, which contribute to climate change.
• Turkeys don't have a happy Christmas but you can help them enjoy the rest of the year by making sure you buy a free range organic bird.
• If you're having a party, avoid serving food and drink on disposable plates and cups - they will just add to our growing mountain of waste. Invite your neighbours and ask if you can borrow some extra crockery from them. Many wine shops lend boxes of wine glasses, if you're buying your drinks from them.
• Instead of throwing away all those sprout peelings, why not put your vegetable leftovers in a compost bin? Around 4,000 million sprouts are bought in the week before Christmas, so there's a lot of composting just waiting to happen.
• The aluminium foil we use for all the cooking and baking would reach from here to the North Pole and back 52 times – reuse or recycle your foil and it'll make great savings for your pocket and the planet.
• It's tempting to over-buy food at Christmas, the average family throws away a third of all the food they buy! Save yourself some cash by trying to plan menus for the holiday season. With a bit of thought you can use most of your leftovers, potatoes and vegetables can be made into bubble and squeak; turkey or meat could be added to a curry; and you could try making stock from the carcass.
• Green fairies – decorating the house and wrapping your presents
  Use Friends of the Earth's Christmas card re-use labels. http://www.foe.co.uk/shop/
• Don't waste your money on wrapping paper. From Christmas alone we bin 8,000 tonnes of the stuff, which could cover 83 square kilometres! Flick through old magazines to find funny or meaningful pictures to use instead. Personalise your presents by picking pictures to make your friends and family laugh.
• Keep your Christmas cards from one year to the next and turn them into free festive name tags for your pressies – there's 744 million cards each year to choose from…
• Alternatively, wrap presents in cloth bags instead of wrapping paper. Friends of the Earth's cloth bags are made in Southern Indian from hand-woven organic cotton, and certified by the Fairtrade Foundation. Available at: www.foe.co.uk Or you could even dust of your sewing machine and make your own bags from any spare material you've got lying around.
• Get creative with the Christmas decorations – if you've got kids why not have a session making Christmas decorations out of recycled materials, pine cones and recycled card.
• Oh and don’t forget to recycle all your old jokes.

AND HAVE A GREEN NEW YEAR...

• If Santa brought you yet another foot spa or fondue kit that’s never going to see any action, why not organise a post-Christmas swapping party with your friends. Just remember not to invite Santa. You could also use this as an opportunity to discuss your Green Year’s Resolutions:
• Join Friends of the Earth
• Take action on climate change by signing up the The Big Ask www.thebigask.com
• Start cycling to work
• Spend a few pounds in your local shops every week