Eco Christmas!

[MultipleMama]

Anybody else going eco this year, or more so than usual?

Wanna share tips and ideas on decorating or ways to save money?

We're pretty eco anyway but doesn't hurt to be more so over the festive period. And it would be pretty fun to get creative and such :)

as pagans we celebrate the winter solstice, we don't have decorations ae such but around dec 17th/18th we collect holly, ivy pine cones and the like and decorate the house, i make pomanders and get the kids making natural decorations, on dec 23rd we take down the decorations and they go out to the compost, costs us next to nothing but it's fun all the same.

What are Pomanders? I've never heard of those before.

I'd love to collect some holly and Ivy but unsure where I should look. My kids love decorating the pincones.

This year we have a rent-a-tree so gotta avoid glitter and such but should still be fun to decorate.

pomandas are made from oranges etc you poke nutmeg into the skin of the orange in patterns using a cocktail stick, they are hung up on ribbon attached to the orange by encircling it, use as much or as little as you want of nutmeg and store in a dark warm place for a couple of weeks, wrapped in paper, the orange dries out but the result is a gorgeous smelling pomander that can be hung in door ways, mantle place or part of a decoration setting. when finished with, remove ribbon and manmade items then the remainder can be composted.

Me and the kids made bunting out of old xmas cards from last year, we just cut the cards into triangles, stuck em to some string (or you could use ribbon if you wanna be a bit fancy) and hang up. Also used old xmas cards for present tags, the dcs get loads of the mini xmas cards from school so perfect size to recycle into tags

Use cloves to make pomanders. I can't imagine nutmeg would work very well.
They are lovely and make everything smell very Christmassy.

We use newspaper as wrapping and decorate it with potato prints. Great way of keeping the children occupied and involved.

Ohh will attempt some of those this weekend with them.

We love using the old Christmas cards as tags and bunting - my mum taught me to do that when I was little.

We like to use old CDs to make shiny baubles or cut them in to shapes like snowmen, and old toilet rolls for the kids to draw Reindeer and Santa on.

Attempting a tree topper this year but no idea where to start but I'm thinking of using twigs and leaves. Any ideas what to do with them?

Paper chains from strips of old wrapping paper?
Decorate blown eggs instead of baubles?
Cut Christmassy shapes out of old wrapping paper and stick onto card for hand made Christmas cards.

For your tree topper, how about making a star shape out of the twigs, and maybe weave some tinsel into it (take this out before you compost it).

I like that idea, blue :)

mrs howard, you are right i had a vague moment i meant to say use cloves not nutmeg, need a another glass of vino to get my head sorted!