Green Christmas Giving

1. Buy products with little or no packaging, or at least, packaged in recycled or recyclable materials.
2. Purchase durable toys for children so they will last beyond January 1.
3. Buy rechargeable cadmium batteries and a solar charger for games and toys.
4. Use comic sections of newspaper or old magazines for giftwrap, wrap with reusable items such as bandanas or towels, or use recycled or reused wrapping paper.
5. Introduce your friends and family to eco-products such as compact fluorescent light bulbs, water-saving showerheads and toilet dams, non-toxic cleansers and bath products or a pack of recycled office supplies.
6. Design gift baskets of organic fruits, breads, cheeses and healthy snacks or native plants, seeds and herbs. Common spider plants and philodendrons clean the indoor air of toxins.
7. Sponsor endangered animals/areas. To order sponsor packets for a whale, dolphin or wolf for $20 each, call National Wildlife Federation, 1-800-432-6564. To adopt-an-acre of rainforest for $20, call Rainforest Action Network, (415) 398-4404.
8. Buy a living tree and plant it in your yard after the holidays. If you don't have a place to plant it, donate it to a school, nursing home, friend, relative, etc.
9. Personalize an environmental license tag. Two designs are now available, one with a rising sun and the other an Indian Blanket wildflower. $24 of the $25 fee goes to state environmental education grants disseminated by the Department of Environmental Quality. (Contact Susie Shields, 405/702-5166 or susie.shields@deq.state.ok.us for more information.)
10. Give gifts of yourself to family members, such as organizing cabinets or closets, catering a party, planting a garden, a week-end of babysitting, housepainting, carwashing, etc. These are true gifts of love rather than just going out and spending money, possibly for unwanted items that will wind up sitting in a closet awaiting a garage sale.