Winter Holidays

The Center for Biological Diversity’s Simplify the Holidays campaign is totally customizable for any community, team or project. We’ve created sustainable gift guides, tips on how to start a conversation about alternative gift-giving, and resources for transforming holidays from a period of stress and shopping to a time of joy, connection and tradition. Feel free to use our material in newsletters, radio and TV ads, waste guides, podcasts, blog posts, presentations or community events. 

Reach out if you’d like to work with our staff on local initiatives, have any questions, or would like to share photos or stories from your simpler holidays. We’d be happy to talk to your classroom, church, or workplace about tips, tricks, and hacks for having a low-waste and less stressful holiday season. We’re also available for Simplify the Holidays webinars, podcasts, and media interviews. Email us at mbecker@biologicaldiversity.org.

1. Ask your local government to approve a sustainable winter      holidays resolution. Ask your elected officials to express a consensus this holiday season to foster greater joy, connection, and tradition while reducing waste, stress, and the depletion of natural resources. Download our sample resolution.

2. Celebrate Secondhand Sunday. Help us make secondhand      your community’s first choice this holiday season by promoting Secondhand Sunday the weekend after Thanksgiving instead of Black Friday. Giving secondhand gifts keeps good items out of landfills and helps avoid the destructive extraction and production of raw materials needed to create new products. Spread the word and normalize secondhand gift-giving by sharing our stats on the growing popularity of thrifting and tips on successful secondhand shopping.   

3. Promote making a wishlist with SoKind. Favorite gifts don’t always fit in a box. SoKind is a wishlist platform that makes it easy to give and receive homemade gifts, secondhand items, gifts of experience or time, and charitable donations. Whether there’s a skill someone wants to learn, an experience someone wants to try, or a favorite local business or charity to support, we’ve got you covered. This year, think outside the box and encourage your community to request and give nonmaterial gifts that are truly meaningful and bring people closer to those they love. Here’s to more fun and less stuff! Create a SoKind wishlist. 

 4. Entertain in a simpler way through sharing forums like kitchen tool libraries. Help your community make entertaining easy by encouraging them to borrow and share specialty cookware and appliances instead of buying them. This helps people save money, encourages creative time in the kitchen, and reduces the amount of new products being bought for once-a-year activities. More communities are creating kitchen tool libraries to make borrowing cider presses, fondue sets, ice cream makers, chocolate fountains, and other specialty items easier. If your community doesn't have a kitchen tool library, you can also normalize sharing items with neighbors or connecting with local Buy Nothing groups on Facebook. See our Simpler Entertaining site for more ideas. 

5. Simplify the holidays on social media. Share stats and graphics from our 2022 national survey on winter holiday consumerism, gift-giving, and waste. The results showed that 90% of Americans wish the holidays were less materialistic. We also found that 56% of Americans are likely to give a secondhand gift, 68% are likely to make a handmade or DIY gift, and 59% are likely to give gifts of time or skill. Read our report and find more stats on alternative gift-giving.  

Looking for examples of how others have used this campaign? Check out these cool ideas below.

● Lane County, OR Waste Wise Program holiday leftover recipe competition

● Rowan County, NC holiday waste guide 

● Santa Fe, NM newsletter article

● University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD blog post

● Blue Cross Blue Shield of California blog post and webinar

● Buffalo, NY Buffalo Museum of Science webinar 

If your holiday traditions include a Christmas tree, you may have grappled with the question of whether an artificial or real tree is better for the planet. The answer is that there are pros and cons to each — and there are also outside-the-box alternatives that will help you tread lightly this holiday season.

Pros: A live tree sequesters carbon, supports local economies, and can be used as beneficial mulch, animal feed, artificial reefs or wildlife brush piles at the end of its life.

Cons: Unfortunately, much of the carbon sequestered in live trees is released once they are cut and disposed of at the end of the holiday season. Real Christmas trees are also often sprayed with chemical pesticides that are bad for workers and the environment and can leave residues in your tree that are toxic for the people and pets in your home. They also often travel hundreds of miles from where they’re grown to where they’re sold, creating air and climate pollution. 

Live trees come out slightly ahead of artificial trees because no amount of decoration can hide the fact that plastic starts as fossil fuels and chemicals and ends as pollution and wildlife hazards. If you do go with a real tree, pick a living tree that can be planted afterwards, preferably one that is grown organically. You can look for organic Christmas tree farms in your area here. The best plastic tree is one that you already have or that you find at a thrift store so you’re not contributing to new plastic production. 

To make your Christmas even greener, instead of purchasing a real or artificial tree, consider some fun and funky alternatives that can be made with materials you already have at home. Trees made of string, recyclable cardboard, books, twigs or a vintage metal tree are all creative alternatives with beautiful aesthetics and they’re better for the planet too.