Christmas Decorations

I, like many others in the world, love to decorate for the holiday season.  In recent years I have been thinking of how to do this in a way that helps the enviroment.  The first thing I decided to do was buy a fake tree. (Don't scream about PVC hazards just yet) This was back in college almost 7 years ago now, and finding a sustainable live tree was both impossible and my poor college kid salary couldn't afford it. So I searched for sales and got really lucky with a nice sized tree that didn't look to fake and was metal and plastic, but spefically did not contain PVC, for the cost of 2 real trees, at the corner lot. I have not been able to find any clear cut stats on whether a fake tree or a live one is more sustainable, most seem to split down the middle, but I have to go with fake, simply because the amount of reuse it provides seems to have to outway the impact of cultivating, cutting and transporting the live ones every year, not to mention the pesticides, ick. Then if you don't recycle that tree (the City of Chicago does by the way, click here) it ends up in a landfill and so on. However, the benefits of some carbon dioxide scrubbing might be useful, so if anyone finds any research that points one way or the other, please let me know!  I did see one suggestion for getting a tree with roots in tact that you could replant, but problems with that are A. I don't have a yard big enough and B. you only can keep it in the warm indoors for a week before you have to plant it. This just doesn't seem like a good alternative for me, so I'll stick to my fake tree.  The next step I took was last year when my lights gave out, I went for LED's and found a place that would recycle my old lights, click here.  I love the new LED's, they so much more vibrant then my old ones.  Well, those are the steps I have taken so far, below are my ideas for the rest of decorations, I'll keep adding as I come up with ideas:

• Lights - Replace and recycle standard lights with more efficient LED lights
  
• Cards - If sending holiday cards consider e-cards, if not make sure to buy only cards with recycled content
  
• Wrapping Paper - Either buy recycled content paper only or reuse paper scraps (I am an architect and our scrap drawings make for some nice wrapping paper, you can even spice it up a bit with stamps or markers and such.)
  
• Recycle - We can't always control what lands on our doorstep as gifts, so make sure in the frenzy of the day you remeber to get a bag out to put all the paper in for recycling.  If you decide to go for a live tree make sure it gets recycled.  When you take down the cards make sure to recycle those as well. 
• Food - All of the holidays seem to be surrounded with food. Make sure what you bring to the table is organic and/or locally grown/produced.  It is healthier for you and the environment that way'
• Ornament and Decorations - Sometimes too much, is too much. Keep things simple here, buy local handcrafted items rather then those made and shipped from overseas.  In general buy less, remember there are 3 R's, REDUCE, reuse and recycle. 
• Gifts - For the kids buy made in the US items (I have a couple sites listed on my links page) For the adults think sustainable, fair trade or organic if your giving food. Homemade treats are always a welcome present and if you make them yourselves reuse containers to give them in then you control how environmentally friendly your gifts are.  Locally crafted items are always a good way to go as well.