Do not destroy the earth when you celebrate my birth.

As you can imagine from my long absence from blogging, I have a job. It often leaves me tired at the end of the day. The couple of times I have sat down to blog I have had blogger's block. It's not that I didn't have any ideas. It's just that I couldn't put it together in a manner that was half intelligible. More about that later.

Now some recycled, recycling tips for Christmas. This first appeared as an article in our church newsletter when we were at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in St. Joseph, Michigan.

In Advent and Christmas we remember God coming into our world as a human baby, and we eagerly prepare for Jesus? victorious return. These are truly good reasons for much joy and celebration.
Unfortunately the manner in which we celebrate creates a lot of garbage. Did you know that during each week of the holiday season we add one million extra tons of waste to our landfills? I would like to offer some suggestions of ways we can creatively reduce our holiday waste. This list is by no means exhaustive. If you have other ideas, I would love to hear about them.

Before Christmas
Use sturdy gift bags.
Shirt boxes with pre-printed holiday designs can be secured with curling ribbon, rather than using wrapping paper.
Cookie tins work well for small gifts (not just edibles).
Fabric with Christmas designs can be used to wrap gifts, and then re-used.
*Cut edges with pinking shears to prevent fraying
*Can be used to wrap boxes just like wrapping paper
*Can be used to wrap irregularly shaped items by putting item in the center of the
fabric, gathering the ends of the fabric at the top, and securing with a ribbon
*Can be sewn into drawstring gift bags
Use shredded or balled up newspaper instead of Styrofoam peanuts to pad items to be shipped by mail
Give gifts that require minimal wrapping, for example:
*Tickets to a play or concert
*Gift certificates to a favorite restaurant
*Coupons for babysitting
*Donation to a missionary or a charity
*A gift of time, for example a child can give an afternoon to a grandparent.
After Christmas
Save all usable gift bags, boxes, and tins to reuse next year
Used wrapping paper
*Can be put through a paper shredder and used as padding for gift bags next year
*Can be recycled into hand-made paper (www.arnoldgrummer.com)
Christmas Cards
*The fronts can be used as thank you postcards or saved for next year and used as
Christmas postcards
*Can be attached to paper shopping bags or shirt boxes, over the store?s name and
be used for next year?s gift-wrapping
*Images and words from the cards can be cut out and used in scrapbooks
Save postage stamps from cards and letters you receive. Some charities sell donated stamps to collectors overseas to raise money
Toss anything that cannot be reused into your recycling bin (as allowed by your recycling service of course). Don?t forget metal, glass, and plastic containers from the ingredients of your holiday feast!

Back when we were in the US, and I had much more storage space, I did all of the above mentioned activities. It was sort of devotional for me. I find that when my hands are busy, my mind is more alert to the things of God. I would often reflect on the theme (of my life, of this blog) that to God nothing/no one is disposable. It also served as a time to recommit myself to resisting worshiping the altar of consumerism.

Obviously, now that we are in the UK I don't have the space to keep all that stuff. I did, however, keep much of the paper that our things were packed in when they came across the pond. I have templates of Christmas shapes, so I used these as stencils to add designs to these sheets of paper. For wrapping smaller gifts, newspaper or printer paper can be transformed in a similar manner. Christmas rubber or foam stamps could also be used.

The result is fun and funky wrappings that don't cost the earth!

Happy Christmas!