We hope that you are all having a delightful last day of 2008!

Need some last minute help in ringing in the New Year?  Check out our Champagne Primer to make sure you’re serving the perfect bubbly for your taste and budget.  Having guests over?  Take a look at our Entertaining with Wine and Cheese guide.  And remember, above all else – celebrate safely and responsibly!

Imagine a wonderful green Christmas day. The scent of fair-trade hot chocolate fills the air as you sip from a recycled / recyclable cup. You look at your beautiful living tree with hand made ornaments and LED lights adorn the entire tree – thankful that your energy bill will not take a bite out of you this year. It’s easy to green your holidays, here are some simple tips!

Wrapping Gifts
Under the tree, sustainable gifts wrapped in recycled paper. Reuse the things you have around the house such as bags, boxes, fabrics, newspaper comics, magazines, and gift wrap from last year.

If you have to go with gift wrap, more sustainable choices include: tree-free paper available in woven grass, Lokta tree bark (made from the inner bark of the Lokta bush quickly re-grown in Napal), banana fiber (made from the bark of the Thai banana tree), spun silk, recycled office paper and recycled rag. You can also buy recycled wrapping paper.

Cards
Send an e-card or search the National Green Pages for cards made from kenaf, hemp, and other tree-free resources. Or instead of sending a card, make a phone call to a loved one.

The Tree
Christmas trees, lights, and ornaments are a classic tradition. If you don’t have a living tree, make sure you find a tree-cycling center after the holiday. Ornaments can be a very fun craft and reuse project for your friends and family made out of items that you normally recycle: paper towel rolls, old calendar pictures, and holiday wrapping paper. If you have any ornaments you no longer want from last year donate them to your local thrift store. Christmas lights can be a real energy consumer over the holidays.  Fight back the energy bills by using a timer on your tree.

Dinner
When buying your Christmas dinner, shop your local Whole Foods Market and support locally grown products to reduce your eco-footprint. Instead of buying all new paper and plastic products, use dishes, silverware and cloth napkins. Make sure you recycle post-party cans, bottles, wrapping paper, etc. and compost food scraps.

Thoughtful Giving
This year instead of buying that video game, movie, etc. for a loved one or friend, offer your time. Make them dinner, walk the dog, or help with things around the house. Or you can make a donation in their honor to their favorite charity or organization. Shop for green gifts over the computer and save gas. Avoid toys and tape made with PVC plastic. PVC contains a chemical called vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen. Also, there is lead and cadmium in some PVC  plastics to keep it from breaking down – these ingredients can be particularly dangerous for children. To buy PVC free tape, check out this site.

Have a great green holiday!

Hayley Leibson is a high school freshman and a member of the Teens for Safe Cosmetics chapter in Marin, California.

If you are like me, you probably have at least two or three strands of holiday lights that were handed down from your mom when you were in college.  Some of the light bulbs are broken so the whole strand doesn’t work…but some day, in the spirit of reusing and doing your share for the environment, you were going to try to find those replacement bulbs and keep using those lights, right?

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The Ellen Degeneres Show is celebrating 12 Days of Giveaways and lucky audience members today will receive holiday goodies exclusive to Whole Foods Market! Tune in to see all the fun.

Here’s what Ellen chose to give her guests:

FEED 100 Bag
In addition to being a great green alternative to paper or plastic bags, each purchase of a FEED 100 bag provides 100 nutritious school meals for hungry children through the UN World Food Program. The bags are not only made from eco-minded materials they are being crafted in one of the world’s few certified facilities ensuring fair treatment of workers, livable wages, paid overtimes, safe and clean working environments, benefits and vacation time. Learn more about these exclusive bags or order now.

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The Alaffia holiday baskets were uniquely designed and created for the 2008 holiday season. These are Alaffia basket weavers in Blitta, Togo. Gift baskets include the basket, three body care products and a handcrafted ornament and retail for $34.99.

Six months ago, while on the road I received a suggestion from Justin Miloro (Global Associate Whole Body Coordinator) for Alaffia to propose an exclusive Fair Trade gift basket to Whole Foods for the holidays.  I remember feeling a little fever at this moment, as my mind went immediately to the Alaffia Basket Cooperative in Togo.  I went directly to contact Togo, and a week later we had a prototype basket to present to Justin. Upon his approval, we immediately began weaving the baskets in Togo. We invited 16 women from the Bolga region of Ghana to join the 100 Alaffia basket weavers. After two weeks of production, we realized that even with 116 women, we would not be able to make enough baskets on time since each basket takes an average of three days to complete.  Our cooperative director, Limata Gbadamassi made a trip to the northern Ghana Bolga region to meet with more basket coops.   For the next three months, more than 350 women worked to complete the gift basket order.

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You may not think gift shopping when you go to the grocery store, but Whole Foods Market is known for offering unique, interesting, exclusive treats for those who care about quality, social responsibility and the environment.  Check out this video where we share with you some of our favorite ideas for holiday gift giving!

For more info, check out our Holiday Giving Guide.

Gifts

Season’s Greetings!
Welcome to holidays with heart.
Joyous gifting and feasting
while doing our part.

Empowering, inspiring
sharing our treasures.
Satisfying, delighting
and taking great measures.

Here’s the best, you can choose
from far or from near.
Ever green are our values.
Ever bright our good cheer!

Podcast: Download

Here’s wishing you and your loved ones a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Still facing the bird with no clue how to cook it?  Got a finished turkey and unsure how to carve it?  Missing an ingredient and need a last minute substitution?  Check out our Holiday Guides & Tips for some help!

I think one of the best things about hosting the Thanksgiving feast is having days of leftovers! Of course, I like leftovers; some people don’t. The trick can be taking the leftover ingredients and turning them into a new dish. In this podcast, we talk with nutritionist and natural foods chef Alana Sugar about using up all of that valuable food in new and interesting ways.

Make sure to check out our holiday pages for great turkey leftover recipes. What’s your favorite way to eat up all that great food?

Podcast: Download

Sometimes I find gift giving especially challenging. With all the need in the world, why the heck should I get Aunt Mary Lou a new apron? She has 10 already! What I really want to do is make a donation or give a charitable gift in her honor. But then there’s nothing tangible to unwrap and somehow the family turns me into the Scrooge of the season. “Why can’t Paige give normal gifts like everyone else?”

If a version of this story plays out for you, the Feed 100 Bag just might be the perfect option. Here’s the deal: you buy the Feed 100 stylish reusable shopping bag to give as a tangible gift and part of the proceeds go to providing 100 meals to hungry Rwandan school children.  Win-win, right?

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Thanksgiving is a holiday filled with tradition – celebrating the fall harvest with a bountiful array of fall vegetable sides and a succulent turkey centerpiece, giving thanks at the dinner table before the meal, watching the Thanksgiving Day parade and football games on TV and taking long naps after too much turkey and red wine.

Why not start some new traditions this year by “greening” your Thanksgiving?  Check out some of these great tips on how to make your holiday celebration memorable, while being a little kinder to the environment.

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