Review: A Greener Christmas

Edited by: Sheherazade Goldsmith
Rating: 4.5/5
Grade: A - All ages

I was lucky enough to receive this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

This is a nice thick, colorful book full of wonderful and easy ideas on how to simplify Christmas. It has many great ways to get away from the consumerism and wasteful habits usually shown at Christmas-time. And in case you aren't convinced of the necessity of this, from the introduction:

Somehow this day that should be full of creativity, good will, and thoughtfulness has lost its way and has ended up as a symbol of our throw-away society, in which we buy products that have no real use, are not designed to last and, despite their huge, long-lasting polluting production costs, provide only a brief thrill. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are now widely recognized as the two most polluting days of the year: the equivalent of three weeks of carbon dioxide emissions and three billion tons of extra garbage are generated worldwide over this short period. Much of the extra trash collected contains discarded gifts, most of which will end up in landfill sites.

To combat this, the book is full of projects and ideas to make, grow, and recycle gifts for Christmas. Included are: recipes for homemade traditional holiday goodies; homemade lip balm; natural cards made from recycled paper and objects such as seeds and leaves; themes for decorating your tree with directions on how to have a - natural Christmas tree with dried fruit and other foraged materials, or a Fabric and paper Christmas tree made from eco-friendly material such as vintage fabric and discarded paper, or an Edible Christmas tree filled with homemade sweets. And the list could go on and on.

All of the projects in this book are accompanied by bright close-up pictures of the finished product, along with photo's of each step in the process. Great for someone, like myself, who has a hard time visualizing things and figuring out what something is supposed to look like. The projects are categorized into five different categories: Welcome - the front door decorations; Christmas Tree; Giving; Table; and finally, food. The back of the book has templates for many of the projects for those of us who cannot free-hand.

To sum up: love the look of the book, the lovely glossy pictures; love the layout of the book, well organized; love the creative and little house on the prairie-ish ideas = loved the book