5 Helpful Tips for a Green Holiday Season: Gift Giving

In these days of excessive holiday spending, "green" gift giving sounds like one more new way to channel those gift-giving dollars. But I challenge you to think about the idea that green giving is all about less: less spending, less waste, less stuff. The only way you can give really green gifts is to change your whole gift-giving philosophy.

1. Change the way you think about Christmas. There isn't a gift of "stuff" that will meet any requirement on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 1True, there might be some gifts which would increase the recipient's feelings of safety (level 2), or aid them in creativity (level 5). Gifts that speak to such needs might be good ideas to think about. (Only a small percentage of people would consider a fire extinguisher a great gift to receive at Christmas though!) Consider gift certificates to an art or music store for your artistic friends. That way they can choose the gift that does meet their need- no waste, no returns, very green indeed. Tickets to the local theatre or symphony would be a wonderful gift for someone on a limited income who wishes they could attend an occasional cultural event.

2. Change the way you think about Christmas. A gift of merchandise is not required in every situation. Give gifts of your time. Offer a couple of hours of your time to fix dinner or clean house for a neighbor, or a busy relative. If you are handy spend some time fixing things or doing chores for someone who is older or not so inclined. One of the best gifts I ever gave my mother was a book on tape that I recorded for her. And she passed it around to the neighbors too, so it served several lifetimes!

3. Change the way you think about Christmas. Less is best! Hostess gifts, office gifts, and party gifts can often be smaller. Stop giving gifts that no one wants! Gift boxes with four more mugs that have to be stored come to mind; sets of cheap bath products collect dust on people's shelves until they are trundled off to the trash. If you are giving food try to be sure it is something that the recipient can eat. Many people are on restricted diets or have allergies.

4. Change the way you think about Christmas. The greenest gifts are ones that will not be returned, re-gifted, or thrown away. To give such gifts, you must know the person you are buying for. When I was younger I knew a woman who proudly said that she believed that the best gift to give someone else is something that you thought was very special yourself. A few weeks later I found myself in a round-robin birthday gift party with her, and I had drawn her name. I carefully selected a small but beautiful set of ceramic baby birds that I really liked. She was not very happy with them, and I learned that despite the confidence with which she had stated her philosophy, when she was the recipient she then also preferred gifts that she thought were special. Lesson learned! We all like to get gifts that we like... try hard to make this come true for the people on your list, and the size or cost of the gift will be unimportant.

5. Change the way you think about Christmas. Remember that Christmas isn't really about getting a lot of stuff, or even giving a lot of stuff. At its core, Christmas is the time when we celebrate the One Gift that God gave to humanity, his son Jesus. The best gift of all is to give Him your heart. The resulting change in your outlook will "green up" all your relationships, making them less about stuff, and more about love.

I can't say that I've really arrived at the point of being truly green yet. There are lots of electronics on my wish list. But I sure don't NEED all those gadgets. What people want, myself included, are gifts from someone's heart!

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs Maslow's hierarchy of needs