I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas: Gifts, Decorations, and Recipes that Use Less and Mean More
This holiday season, Anna Getty chef, mother, organic living expert, environmental advocate, and writer helps families save money and reduce their carbon footprint without sacrificing style or tradition. Anna advises how to choose the best tree (real or fake?), mitigate the negative effects of necessary travel, recycle post-holiday, and more. She shares favorite holiday recipes for organic appetizers and homemade craft ideas such as pinecone wreaths and recycled sweater pillows. With inspiring photographs, extensive resources, and advice from the 'Lazy Environmentalist' Josh Dorfman, Seventh Generation's Jeffrey Hollender, and other leading eco-experts, families might just find that these tips help them stay green all year long the perfect New Year's resolution!Q&A with Anna GettyQ: How can being green save you money?Getty:  When you use less you buy less. If we buy less ipso facto we save money.Q: How does the book help to teach your kids to be green?Getty:This book is about creating family traditions. This book is about being more green during a very wasteful time of year. If we incorporate our children into these new traditions of crafting with what we already have, making gifts and not buying gifts, we help our children become more green and more conscientious about respecting the planet. Children learn through example. If we make changes with our own wasteful habits , our children will adopt these changes as their own.Q: What is your favorite holiday tradition?Getty:Baking Christmas cookies with my daughter and her little friends.Q: What is a good place to start if you are new to the green movement?Getty:Start with easy doable steps. If you are not recycling, start recycling, if you still use stores plastic bags switch to paper (many paper bags are now made from recycled paper) or better yet bring your own cloth bags. Do one or two things and let them become a part of you rather then too many at once and then give up. In terms of the holidays, ditch the store bought wrapping paper. Most store bought wrapping paper uses virgin paper stock and toxic dyes or ink. Go for recycled wrapping paper or reuse paper (just be careful when you open gifts so you can save it to rewrap). Or find alternative ways of wrapping like using old maps or music sheets, or pages out of magazines or old newspapers and books.Q: Are there any tips from the experts in the book that surprised you?Getty: Darren Moore of www.ecovations.com surprised me with the information that having ones home Energy Star Home Performance tested could cut ones energy consumption in half. I also really loved Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation's tip about being reflective and appreciative during the holiday time.Q: What’s your favorite recipe or craft from the book?Getty: Hard to pick as I love so many of them but my favorite recipe hands down is the Trufled Goat Cheese Macaroni and Cheese and the Recycled Christmas Card Gift tags is pretty high up there in the crafts.Recipe Excerpts fromI'm Dreaming of a Green ChristmasTruffled Goat Cheese Macaroni and CheeseSalt Dough Ornaments