12 Days of Giving

At the end of the day empty out the jar or box and count up how much you collected. Tomorrow ( December 24 - aka Christmas Eve) make the special trip to your local charity and brighten someone's day! 

Here is a website with excellent suggestions on alternatives to gift wrapping paper:  Planet Green's 12 Easy Alternatives: http://bit.ly/tVCZK7

And for those who need to watch the news, start tracking beyond one hour of TV or computer time.

Check out Martha Stewart's suggestions (which aren't that bad at all and easy to follow) for jar gifts: http://bit.ly/v0cE3l

My advent calendar that I finally finished this year - it's been a work in progress since 2009. Well worth it! Most of the felt envelopes I stitched by hand, the Santa stocking and mittens are the only store bought/pre-made items, and the window frame I got from my parents who were planning on sending it to the dump. Think outside the box, and try to find ways to reuse items rather than discarding them this holiday season.

Just remember: The average plastic bag is used for five minutes to carry your purchases home, yet these single use plastic bags can take up to 1000 years to break down; and plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - which means that the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest them.