When I spend Christmas with my parents in Pennsylvania, we usually spend Christmas Eve looking for the best, over-the-top-lights-will-give-you-radiation-burns home lighting display in my parents' neighborhood. We fondly refer to it as our "merriment tour". I'm spending the holidays in San Francisco this year, and conducted a world-wide merriment hunt via YouTube. This display claims to have a low carbon footprint because the lights blink only in sections at preset times. Frankly, I don't see how on Earth this display could possibly have a low carbon footprint, but I suppose I'm glad they tried to consider it when creating this masterpiece. Be prepared, this will blow your mind.
Well it looks like the Carnabetian army marches to a new green tune. The street in London prowled by many swinging sixties stars started a new Christmas tradition this year that employs some pretty cool energy efficiency measures. Treehugger broke the news today:
It's a tradition, of sorts: every year in mid-November, C-list celebrities, always women, are enlisted to turn on the Christmas lights festooning major streets. Very tacky, and environmentally wasteful. So hurray for Carnaby Street, that funny little left-over from London's Swinging Sixties. This season they have covered the walking streets with festive paper chains in bright, irridescent colours.
It's an inventive alternative to energy consuming lights, and they didn't even have a super-model to "turn them on". The paper chain design will make use of the store lights in the shops at night and will interact with the holographic finish of the Christmas decorations, therefore using no extra electricity for the display. By using a highly reflective material and extremely bright colours, the oversized ‘paper chains’ will react to sunlight too, so that removes the use of electricity during daylight hours altogether. A great-looking idea on all counts. ::
A few days ago I offered advice on a greener holiday season. This morning, my commute buddy told me about another option in San Francisco (thanks, Jonah!). In anticipation of sharing the information with you all, I jammed this tune on my ipod (best sad Christmas song EVER--in fact this album is on almost constant rotation between Thanksgiving and Christmas for me).
From the Cole Hardware website: Adopt a living tree Once again, Friends of the Urban Forest have teamed up with the Department of the Environment to offer San Francisco residents a chance to host a living tree during the holidays through the Green Christmas Tree Project. Host families can choose from a variety of trees, including olive, magnolia and strawberry, located at the organization’s tree yard in the Presidio. The trees come in five-gallon pots and range from 6 to 10 feet tall. In January, Friends of the Urban Forest will offer pick-up services and plant the trees throughout the city.
Visit www.fuf.net for more information on the program.
Yes. I'm as bad as your neighborhood drug store--there are still Thanksgiving leftovers in your refrigerator and there's still quite a bit left of your long weekend, and here I am pushing you to go out and spend moola to revive our sputtering economy. Cue song.
I just ordered some decorations (I did my part for our GDP), and got to thinking about what I would hang the little lovelies on this year. Is the more sustainable choice a real tree or an artificial one? The image and lovely aroma of a fresh tree is definitely a warm fuzzy, however the good feelings exit quickly when these images flash through my mind.
Trees
I was pleased to read that there are many benefits to natural trees over artificial ones. Artificial trees are produced with petroleum-based products and require quite a bit of energy to manufacture. They also are often manufactured in China which means transportation from the factory to you produces a considerable amount of emissions versus your locally grown tree.
In contrast, real trees come from Christmas tree farms which means a lumberjack doesn't go into an old growth forest and chop one down. Christmas tree farms are usually cited in areas where not much else grows, so their time is put to use well lowering emissions before they come to be decorated in homes for the holidays.
While artificial trees can be used year after year, real trees can be used but once...or can they? For those in temperate climates with outdoor space, an option might be to go with a potted tree instead of a cut one.
For city dwellers who have but a square of fire escape at their disposal, most metropolitan areas have great recycling programs for trees---complete with mulching services that help nourish city parks. Earth 911 has compiled a great resource for this here. My personal favorite is Mulchfest in NYC. Can someone please turn this into a concert? Please?! How great would it be if your ticket was your sad old holiday tree? Mulchfest could give Coachella a run for its money, for sure!
Lights
Take a cue from Rockefeller Center, go LED. The U.S. Department of Energy says if everyone switched their normal holiday light strings with the LED variety, at least two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity (i.e. a whole lot) would be saved in a month. Please listen to them. They are smart. Here are some LED options.
It's a tradition, of sorts: every year in mid-November, C-list celebrities, always women, are enlisted to turn on the Christmas lights festooning major streets. Very tacky, and environmentally wasteful. So hurray for Carnaby Street, that funny little left-over from London's Swinging Sixties. This season they have covered the walking streets with festive paper chains in bright, irridescent colours. 
