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?

Your idea may have been a good one a few years ago, but things have changed in the holiday light world.  Not only are these old-school incandescent lights energy-suckers, but they could also be unsafe whether or not they are missing bulbs.  I am sure you know that the LED lights that have replaced the incandescent lights are a lot easier to deal with, but did you know that LED lights can be up to 90% more energy-efficient?  While they are more expensive, they have a much longer life and they don’t feel hot when you touch them…that sounds much safer to me, and a lot easier than trying to find those replacement bulbs for your old strands.

That said, please don’t get rid of your old strands if they are still working.  You may want to add a strand of LED lights to your collection little by little since they do cost more than the old style.

What should you do with the old lights when they are no longer working?  Please don’t throw them away!  There are companies out there who will recycle them for you.  The lights are shredded and separated by components (glass, PVC, and copper).  These components will be reused as much as possible, and this effort far outweighs letting the strands end up in your local landfill.  If you remove the light bulbs from the strand, the strand itself can be recycled as scrap metal, as can power cords.

Companies like HolidayLEDs.com will not only recycle your lights for you, they will also give you 15% off your order of anything on their website when you send them lights to recycle.  I like their suggestion of coordinating with your friends and neighbors to collect old lights to send to them for recycling.

You could also try Earth911.com to see if there is a holiday lights recycling facility near you.

Happy Holidays!

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.

Alaffia Fair Trade Body Lotion, Shea Butter and Body Soap
Nourishing, moisturizing products made from unrefined shea butter and other local ingredients by a woman’s cooperative in Togo, West Africa. Ten percent of sales goes back to community projects. Learn more about Alaffia and these gift baskets here.

Hugo Naturals French Lavender Lotion and Hand Soap Set
A chef-developed veritable banquet for the skin, hand crafted with the most beneficial ingredients. A portion of proceeds goes to Earth Share, a federation of environmental groups.

Whole Foods Market Milled Organic Soaps
Exclusively crafted for us in the South of France with natural pigments and triple milled for long lasting luxurious lather.  These soaps are specially formulated to leave your skin clean, moisturized and invigorated with a luxurious lather.  They are never tested on animals.

Burt’s Bees Green Goddess Heirloom Bath Salts
Ease the aches and pains of holiday shopping with this naturally soothing bath time essential. Burt’s Bees Green Goddess Bath Salts hydrate and soothe skin while relieving muscle pain and soreness thanks to an eco-friendly blend of concentrated sea salts and essential oils.

Burt’s Bees Red-y for the Holidays Lip Kit
Burt’s Bees is more than just green—introducing the Red-y for the Holidays Kit, which includes Burt’s Bees Replenishing Lip Balm, Super Shiny Lip Gloss in Zesty Red, and Radiance Lip Shimmer for festively red lips all season long.

Burt’s Bees Green Goddess Body Bar
A nourishing blend of ground almonds, rich essential oils and fresh dried aromatic herbs naturally refresh and buff the skin while bathing. One of those nice touches for a guest.

Burt’s Bees Body Nectar Sudsing Kit
Nurture your body from head to toe with one of nature’s most nourishing substances—honey. Each moisturizing formula in Burt’s Bees Body Nectar Kit is designed to leave skin soft and sweet, just as nature intended.

Burt’s Bees Green Goddess Heirloom Milk Bath
Soak up the soothing, softening qualities of milk with Burt’s Bees’ limited edition Green Goddess Milk Bath. Formulated with milk and buttermilk, natural mild cleansers, the gentle bath softens and hydrates skin.

EO Products Holiday Spice and Winter Solstice Mint Hand Soap
Beautifully pure soaps with lovely natural scents. Rich lather cleanses and nourishes using beneficial amounts of natural and organic ingredients.

Pacifica Winter Solstice Body Butter
Anyone would be pleased with a gift of this warming and nourishing moisturizer with the sensual aroma of lavender, labdanum and bergamot.

Whole Foods Market Gift Card
For the person who likes to choose their own gift! Ellen gave each of her guests a $100 gift card, but choose any amount from $20 to $500 — whatever fits your budget. Pick up in stores or order online.

For more great gift ideas, check out our holiday giving guide.

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.

These Alaffia basket weavers in Sokodé, Togo came from Ghana to provide extra help to fulfill the holiday basket order.

This is exactly why I felt feverish when I first thought about making the gift baskets.  The baskets presented a great opportunity to provide more jobs at a time when food prices had just increased by 150% in West Africa. More importantly, it was also a great opportunity to help further Alaffia’s mission to preserve our cultural knowledge.  These baskets have been made in Togo and northern Ghana for centuries, and this project encourages the preservation of this knowledge.

One basket cooperative in the Bolga region of Ghana that helped weave the Alaffia holiday baskets works together under large Baobab trees.

In addition to the cultural benefit of these baskets, they are also environmentally sustainable.  They are made from native Gamba grass that is wild-harvested from uncultivated areas.  Our baskets are 100% biodegradable, helping to reduce waste in landfills.  We also designed them so they will be useful after the holidays and after the lotion, soap and shea butter have been removed. Some ideas for possible uses include lunch box, jewelry container, food storage as we do in Togo, sewing or knitting box, or even a small garbage can.  I believe we can continue to live on this world with 7 billion other people only if goods and materials are designed for more than one use.  Earth simply does not have enough resources for single use items.

Olowo-n’djo Tchala visited Alaffia’s basket cooperative in Blitta, Togo during his trip in September. Here he reviews Whole Foods holiday baskets in progress.

To me, the most exciting part of this Alaffia gift basket is that they are not mass produced in a factory. Every single basket can be traced back to exactly where it is made. Each weaver puts her unique touch in color and detail weaving; every single finished basket is unique as well.  These baskets can be considered a form of art, a piece of our cultural heritage.  They are an opportunity for cooperative members to put food on their tables and support their families in a place where average income is less than $200 per year.

Furthermore, Alaffia uses at least 10% from the sales of these baskets, like all our products, for our community enhancement projects in our West African communities.  Because these baskets are fair trade, there are no middlemen involved.  The chain of custody is clear: First, Alaffia receives an order from Whole Foods Markets. Then, we send this order to the Alaffia Basket Cooperative in Togo and the baskets are woven. When the baskets are finished, we ship them to our Olympia, WA facility where we add the lotions, shea butter and soaps. The finished baskets are then shipped to Whole Foods Markets across the USA.  The reduced chain of custody and lack of middlemen mean that the women who weave the baskets receive a greater percentage of the final selling price and we are able to continue our community projects.

Alaffia handwoven baskets stacked and waiting to be packed for transport in Blitta, Togo.

It is with greatest sincerity that I thank Whole Foods for the opportunity to make these baskets and thank as well Whole Foods customers, whose purchases will help us continue our social mission to preserve culture, promote gender equality and reduce poverty in our West African communities.

On behalf of all the Alaffia cooperative members, I wish you a peaceful and pleasant holiday season.

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!

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?

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?

The Bag
Designed solely for Whole Foods Market, the FEED 100 reusable bag is made of organic cotton and natural burlap and is produced with a commitment to ensuring fair treatment of workers, livable wages, overtime pay and safe, clean working environments. It is a lightweight, fresh white tote that collapses easily into its base, which is a zippered rectangular burlap pouch emblazoned with the FEED logo and the number 100. An eco-friendly fashion statement that helps educate people about hunger and what we can do to alleviate it. It’s perfect to use for your groceries and for about 50 million other things too.

The Good
Each bag purchased provides 100 nutritious meals to hungry school age children in Rwanda through the United Nation World Food Program’s School Feeding Program.  In 1994, Rwanda lost 800,000 men, women and children to genocide; as a result, the nation’s economy and social structures were decimated. School feeding is one of the most effective solutions to stopping hunger and breaking the poverty cycle. Since 2003, the World Food Program has provided free, nutritious school lunches to Rwanda’s children in 300 schools in the most food-deprived areas. Each hot, nutrient-rich meal draws boys and girls to school, helps them learn, and may be the only meal they have all day. School attendance has grown from 63 percent to 93 percent, and to help close the educational gender gap, girls with good attendance may receive extra rations to take home to their families. Girls with just a few years of education have fewer children, have them later in life, and are better prepared to care for and educate them.

The Cost
When a Whole Foods Market customer buys a FEED 100 bag, $10 is donated by the FEED Foundation to the World Food Program’s Rwanda School Feeding operation, with the remainder going to cover the costs of making the bag and oversight of the program by the FEED Foundation. The bags are produced with high-quality, 100% organic cotton and natural burlap.  All FEED bags are made as eco-friendly and fairly as possible in audited and certified fair labor facilities. To further help the initiative, Whole Foods Market is not making any profit on these bags – in fact many of our stores are offering this bag for a special price of $25 for the holiday season – kicking in our own donation to help feed hungry children. If you aren’t close to one of our stores, check out online ordering through FEED.

Hope this helps make your holiday shopping (and gift unwrapping) more rewarding!

To learn more about the FEED Foundation, visit their website or check out this video.

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.

How to Go Green: Thanksgiving Day

It’s not as hard as you might think: Do you typically put a wreath on your door and a cut flower arrangement on your table? Try buying organic, or better yet, find living succulent wreaths for both. Is your centerpiece a turkey? Find a heritage breed, or consider a vegetarian alternative. Find out how to shop your local farmers’ markets for your feast, and find recycled elements for your holiday decor.

How to Plan a Green Thanksgiving

Quench thirst with green liquor. Serve organic vodka, gin, cider, wine or beer; buy local if possible. Instead of bottled water, freshen tap water by filtering and adding squeezed lemons, limes, or oranges

Go light on chicken, turkey and beef. Focus on eco-friendly vegetarian fare or organic meats. Try vegetarian nut roast with apple walnut stuffing or baked acorn squash with cranberries. A green Thanksgiving can be delicious without the turkey!

13 Eco Friendly Tips for a Greener Thanksgiving

When running around picking up all your necessities for the big day, make sure you bring along reusable bags. See if you can reduce the amount of waste you produce by buying only as much as you need and choosing products that come in packaging that can be recycled.

Guide to a Greener Thanksgiving

Try Some Turn-Offs

Two of the biggest Thanksgiving traditions often mean having the television on all day. The Macy’s Day Parade carries over to football games for those not on cooking duty in the kitchen, and there are often movies for the kids on other TVs. That electrical consumption, along with running the oven and popping in and out of the fridge for ingredients, can really add up when you multiply it by the millions of people participating all over the country.

If you enjoy watching the Parade, try attending an actual parade in your hometown—the excitement of a live event will be much more entertaining for the kids and spending time with your fellow community members fits right in with what Thanksgiving is supposed to be about. If you’ve got die-hard football fans, however, they may not be too keen on the idea of giving up the games. See if you can talk them into a limited amount of viewing and make sure you use one TV for the group instead of several in different rooms, especially if you own big screen TVs (which are real energy eaters). After everyone finishes eating, offer up board games or card games for people to play and serve dessert in the living room so that you can turn off lights and/or heaters in other rooms (don’t forget the kitchen).