Our family has always searched for ways to celebrate Christmas with eco-friendly activities. Since children love to participate in Christmas activities use eco-friendly activities for kids to teach them to celebrate the holiday and protect our environment at the same time. Below are my top five suggestions for green Christmas activities for children to celebrate Christmas.
1. Eco-friendly ways to celebrate Christmas can include many activities to save our environment but the one that is my favorite involves providing a Christmas for children less fortunate around the world. Buy allowing your children to participate in Operation Christmas Child by Samaritan’s Purse, you child can recycle an old shoe box by turning it into a gift for a child around the world who would otherwise never know what it is to receive a Christmas present. We have participated in this Christmas activity for many years and our daughter has learned valuable lessons through this wonderful program. You simply get a large, shoebox, fill it with items for a boy or girl, and drop it off at a collection spot near you – Samaritan’s Purse does the rest.
2. Purchasing a Christmas tree that can be planted in the yard after Christmas is my second favorite eco-friendly way to celebrate the holidays. We purchase a living Christmas tree with the roots in tact (they are wrapped in a burlap sack) for our tree each year and then replant the tree after the holidays. Eco-friendly Christmas trees can usually be found at your local home improvement store, roadside Christmas tree lots and local Christmas tree farms. Check out MotherNatureNews online for great advice about replanting your Christmas tree.
3. A great eco-friendly Christmas activity for kids is to allow them to wrap presents in old comics from the newspaper. My friend started this tradition with her children years ago and it became a contest to see how decorative they could be with recycled items they collected during the months before Christmas. If you still prefer to use a more traditional wrapping paper, allow your children to help you choose eco-friendly wrapping paper for your presents. You can find “green” Christmas wrapping paper online at Green Field Paper Company and Green Girl Gift Wrap.
4. Celebrate Christmas the green way by allowing your kids to make Christmas cards from recycled paper and other recycled items rather than purchasing expensive, new Christmas cards. If you do not have time to allow your children to make Christmas cards, let them help you choose eco-friendly Christmas cards to show your commitment to our environment. For great suggestions for where to find eco-friendly Christmas cards, read Go Green with Recycled Christmas Cardsby Carly Reynolds and Recycled Christmas Cardsby Angela La Fon (both articles are located on Associated Content).
5. Recycle your old Christmas cards from past years as beautiful, hand-made Christmas gift tags. Give your children old Christmas cards, ribbon, old buttons or other items, glue, hole punch and children’s scissors. Show them how to cut up the old Christmas cards to use the images on the front of the cards for Christmas gift tags. They can decorate the gift tags with the ribbon and other items. This is a fantastic eco-friendly Christmas activity for kids to celebrate Christmas.
