Merry Christmas Everyone!

I wish you happy and healthy holidays full of joyous time with family and your loved ones. Often the holidays have become a time to stress about shopping, money, preparing meals, etc, this year I ask that you take the time to sit back, relax and be thankful for the time spent with family friends and loved ones.

We have a tradition in our house of opening up our new Christmas pyjamas on Christmas Eve. This year, I went with a matching pair!

This one is as close to a family picture we could get.. trust me they are never perfect! The dog is trying to eat the cat and the cat is clawing away in fear. This one might be the definition of the awkward family photo. But in the end, aren't the imperfections of family what Christmas is all about.

From my family to yours we wish you a Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noel

Feliz Navidad

Buon natale e felice anno nuovo

Froehliche Weihnachten und ein glueckliches Neues Jahr

Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou

Merry Keshmish

Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo

Felices Pasquas Y Felices ano Nuevo

Nadolig Llawen

En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr

Kellemes kara’csonyi u”nnepeket e’s boldog u’j e’vet

God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt Ar

Gle[eth]ileg jol gott og fars

Hristos se rodi

Linksmu Kaledu Macedonian: Sreken Bozhik

Prieci’gus Ziemsve’tkus un Laimi’gu Jauno Gadu

Nollaig Shona Dhuit

Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo

Kala Christouyenna

Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia

LL Milied Lt-tajjeb

Sung Tan Chuk Ha

Sawadee Pee Mai

Maligayang Pasko

Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom

Chuc Mung Giang Sinh

Milad Majid

Een Plesierige Kerfees

Natale hilare et Annum Faustum

Mo’adim Lesimkha. Chena tova

 However you express the joy of the holiday season to others around you, I wish you a happy, healthy holiday season.

Christmas Joy & Shopping Pain

Cramped parking lots, long line-ups, and short tempers… all words my fiancé would use to describe Christmas shopping. In his defense, Christmas shopping can be very stressful but not if you plan ahead.

Have you ever gone out Christmas shopping with a list of people in your head for whom you need to buy Christmas presents? Me too. And I always ended up over spending and forgetting people.

You can make Christmas shopping a little less stressful and A LOT more budget friendly by following a game plan. Start with listing out everyone you are buying Christmas presents for. Then I usually start a couple weeks before I go out shopping, researching online and getting ideas for presents. This way, I am able to plan a budget for each person. You need to commit to your budget, it is really easy to say, “I think I will get that instead, it is only $10 more”. $10 per person can really add up.

It doesn’t end there. Before I go out shopping, I make a plan of action. What stores I am planning to go to and what I am getting at each store.

It all sounds like a lot of work, but honestly it makes things so much easier. Mike and I went out this afternoon and as he says, “It was relatively painless.” We were able to get presents for more than ten people on our list in just a couple hours.

Taking some time to make a plan doesn’t sound so bad now, eh?!

9 DAYS LEFT

When you are out and about this Holiday season, just take a minute to remember what Christmas is all about. It isn’t about getting the latest and greatest presents, but it is about enjoying some time with your family and friends and helping those less fortunate.

Tis the Season!!

The shopping malls are filled with people trying to get the latest and greatest toys for their friends and family. Once purchased, those gifts are wrapped into beautiful packages and placed under the Christmas tree.

There is only one problem... most wrapping paper purchased in stores is not recyclable. So all of that beautiful wrapping paper ends up being thrown into a landfill and takes years to decompose.

This year, I set out on having one my greenest Christmases and at a lower cost than traditional wrapping to boot.

What you need:

·        Christmas Ornaments – 5 for $1.25 from the Dollarstore

·        Packing paper – 40’ roll for $3.99 from most business supply stores or I recently found 25’ rolls at the dollarstore for $1.25 each

·        Brown paper gift bags – 2 for $1.25 from the Dollarstore

·        Ribbon or twine – various prices (I have a bunch left over from last year)

·        Christmas themed stamp – I ordered a Christmas tree one online, I am just waiting for it to come in

·        Oh and don’t forget the hot chocolate and cookies!

Step 1 – Wrap the present with packing paper

Step 2 – Add ribbon to the package

Step 3 – Tie the Christmas Ornament to the ribbon to add a special touch and some sparkle

Step 4 – Stamp the paper with your Christmas stamp once or multiple times. I will be using the stamp as a gift tag to write who the present is to and from. Not to say that most of my family and friends will know a present wrapped in recyclable paper is from me!  

 

It’s as easy as that. Now you have beautiful Christmas presents under the tree for a fantastic green Christmas (but I am still wishing for snow). Plus by adding the tree ornaments to the wrapping, your friends and family are getting something special to add to their trees as well.  

Next, you have to break the habit of pulling out the garbage bag on Christmas morning and throwing everything in sight inside. When growing up, I can remember sitting in a sea of torn wrapping paper and the adults in the room coming with garbage bags to clean everything up in one swoop!

Break the cycle and pick up the recycling bins this year.

I hope that answers your question Paul! Happy Holidays everyone. Remember Christmas isn’t just about the stress of the shopping malls and spending money, but about taking the time to enjoy the company of your friends and family and to be thankful of the blessings you have in your life.

Green Eggs and Ham… and Coffee?

Keurig, Tossimo, Mr. Coffee, Nespresso, Tim Horton’s, Starbucks, etc.

… How ever you get your morning coffee, have you thought about how it affects the environment? We just added a Keurig to our home and before I knew it I realized I have no idea what to do with the K-cups.

So with a little research, I came to this:

Type	Recyclable?	# of years to biodegrade in a landfill
Tim Horton’s / Starbucks Paper Cups	Plastic lid is recyclable in your blue bin. Paper cup can be disposed of in your green bin / compost.	Plastic lid  - 15 years + decades longer Paper cup – 15 years
K-Cups (Keurig / Mr. Coffee/Nespresso)	There are three layers to every K-cup. The foil lid can be pulled off and recycled. The coffee grinds inside can be disposed of in your green bin / compost. The filter inside the cup is made of paper and can be recycled with paper products being sure to remove as many food particles as possible. The outer plastic shell is not recyclable.	Full cup – hundreds of years
T-discs (Tassimo)	Similar K-cups, T-discs have three layers. The foil lid can be pulled off and recycled, but you need cut out the barcode in order to recycle it. The filter inside the cup is made of paper and can be recycled with paper products being sure to remove as many food particles as possible. The outer plastic shell is recyclable where recycling programs exist.	Full cup – hundreds of years
Home Coffee Percolator	Coffee grinds and filter are 100% biodegradable in your green bin / compost	Filter and coffee grinds – 1 year or less Note – the coffee filters (white ones) have some bleach in them, but with all my research the amount is minimal and can be decomposed without worrying about adding chemicals to the compost.

(Note – the above information is dependent on brand and could differ accordingly)

In the end, the tried and true home coffee percolaters are the most environmentally friendly. So why have so many switched to this new one use system that puts billions of plastic cups into landfills every year? Convenience… isn’t that the answer all the time these days?

I won’t continue on a tree-hugging rant because frankly no one wants to hear it and… we bought a Keurig last week! So what are our other options if we have these brewers at home:

Keurig Option – EcoBrew Elite (http://www.ekobrew.com/)

(Picture taken from - www.ekobrew.com)

This seems like the best of both worlds, saves on money and there is virtually no waste. Only problem, Mike and I don’t drink coffee. So it isn’t our best option for the coffee alternative K-cups, however I will keep researching. In the meantime, my work has a program where they collect all the used K-cups and return them to the manufacturer for proper recycling and disposal.

As for the Tassimo, their brand includes the slogan “The barcode brews it better”. Because of this, they have not come up with an alternative reusable pod (that I can see). That being said, their pods are recyclable as noted above, so it is slightly more environmentally friendly to start than most K-cups.

As for your morning Tim Horton’s or Starbucks coffee, think twice before tossing them in the trash. Every year, 58 billion paper cups are thrown into landfills. In order to make those cups, 20 million trees are cut down and 12 billion gallons of water are used. (stats taken from - http://www.thebetacup.com/about/).

So if that morning cup of joe is what you need, just take a second to think of your impact on the environment with each sip. Maybe instead of 58 billion paper cups among the billions of K-cups and T-discs, you can reduce it by just one… in the hopes of that number getting smaller and smaller with each cup.