Christmas is a time for family, friends, and giving. For those wishing to give a little something to the environment this Holiday season, consider reading A Greener Christmas, edited by Sheherazade Goldsmith. A Greener Christmas, edited by Sheherazade Goldsmith (Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-7566-3693-7) is a comprehensive guide to having a greener, more environmentally friendly Christmas. This collection contains crafts, recipes, and other holiday activities all geared around a greener holiday season.
Contents in A Greener Christmas
A Greener Christmas contains a plethora of ideas of how to celebrate the holidays while still looking out for the environment. From innovative wrapping paper alternatives to easy crafts using recyclables, this work contains a host of creative decorating and craft ideas. The chapters are titled Welcome, Christmas Tree, Giving, Table, and Food. The first chapter, Welcome, contains green ideas for having a festive holiday environment, such as how to grow mistletoe to making edible bird decorations.
The second chapter, Christmas Tree, contains a host of innovative ideas for having a greener Christmas tree, such as decorations from recyclables or natural materials and how to repot and reuse your Christmas tree. The third chapter contains gift ideas and crafts, most that utilize scraps or recyclables. The fourth section, Table, has tasteful table setting ideas, either using natural materials or recyclables. The final chapter, food, contains a variety of tasty recipes, many using leftover Christmas foods to encourage reusing food and preventing waste. For what you can’t use, there is information on composting.
Recipes and Craft Ideas in A Greener Christmas
A Greener Christmas contains a host of ideas for celebrating the holiday a little greener. Some are more obvious such as using energy efficient Christmas lights to truly inventive and original ideas such as wrapping presents in old shirts. A Greener Christmas will assist any reader in being a little more environmentally conscious this holiday session.
The décor using natural materials, such as fruit slices or various types of foliage are truly beautiful and tasteful. There also is a guide to various types of winter foliage that is extremely useful if looking to naturally decorate your home.
The craft ideas also cater to different levels of difficulty. Some crafts are suitable for kids, while others are more challenging. The sewing projects are tasteful and useful, such as reusable, homemade bags to wrap presents. Some of the crafts might not necessarily be green. If you purchase the materials instead of repurposing old materials from home the craft ceases to be really green.
Also, all of the recipes are tasty and festive. Many of them incorporate leftover holiday food and are a great resource for creatively reserving holiday leftovers. The recipe section is worth browsing through for Christmas culinary ideas and is a useful guide to holiday cooking. Many of recipes are traditional English recipes such as mince pies or Christmas cake. Some of the recipes cater to more gourmet adult taste buds, such as parsnip crisps, but there also are also many creative recipes geared towards younger chefs and taste buds such as bread animals and marshmallow sweets. There also is a great guide to seasonal produce, that is very useful.
Some of the ideas in A Greener Christmas are more time consuming then others, but there are plenty of ideas that are very easy to fit into your holiday schedule and lifestyle. This book is well worth flipping through for ideas on how to be a little greener this holiday season.
Visually, A Greener Christmas is very tastefully put together. The layout of the photographs and text are well designed. This aesthetically pleasing book is ideal as a gift for a green friend, craft aficionada, or perhaps an edition to your own library. With easy and concise instructions this is very easy to read or casually browse through read, ideal for the Christmas season.
For more Christmas & holiday reading, see Fun Holiday Baking: Popular Christmas Baked Goods Cookbooks.
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