Humbug?

I’m going to come right out and say it. I’ll risk epithets like “un-American” or worse. I know I fly in the face of tradition and custom, but don’t care. Go ahead and call me Scrooge or the Grinch.

Bah humbug! Ban Christmas!

Okay, okay. Don’t get so upset. I don’t actually mean “ban.” But this collective form of madness has got to stop.

We believe the myth, perpetuated by our advertising and consumer culture, that the success of the season depends on hours of shopping, spending money we don’t have on things nobody needs. The custom of exchanging elaborate gifts did not begin until the late 1800s, and now it’s an unbridled retail juggernaut.

But let’s be truthful: Most of what we consume in November and early December is garbage by January 1.

According to the National Geographic web site, between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, Americans throw away an extra five million extra tons of garbage per week. Four million tons of that trash is wrapping paper and shopping bags.

A growing number of us are not comfortable with that kind of waste, painfully aware that very few of us give gifts to people who really need them. There are many ways to adopt environmentally conscious gift-giving without compromising on the spirit of the season.

One way is to skip store-bought presents and give handmade gifts that reflect your special talents. If you have a special area of expertise, offer it as a gift. Give a massage, a haircut, wood-working lessons, baking lessons.

Or you can make a donation to a charity in the name of someone on your list. Organizations like Heifer International ( heifer.org ), whose mission is to build sustainable communities worldwide, or Seva Foundation, which provides eye-care services to people around the world, will send gifts in honor of your designated recipients.

Plant a tree. The Arbor Day Foundation ( arborday.org ) plants trees in rain forests or fire-ravaged areas, or you can purchase a tree and plant it on the recipient’s property. Buy a potted or balled Christmas tree so you can replant it in the backyard or donate it to your town.

Give gifts that can be experienced, like tickets to a local performance. Or create a gift certificate for a home-cooked meal at your house, a free night of babysitting or a winter’s worth of snow shoveling.

If you do buy gifts, produce fewer carbon emissions by visiting the many local holiday craft fairs and purchasing gifts there. It’s a win-win for the recipient and the local artist.

Whatever gifts you do buy, choose the wrapping carefully. A cotton canvas tote bag can be used later at the grocery store. Or wrap your gifts in colorful sections from newspaper or magazines.

If you want to be more traditional, buy recycled wrapping paper and reuse or recycle it. One ton of paper from recycled pulp saves 17 trees, three cubic yards of landfill space, 7,000 gallons of water, 4,200 kilowatt hours (enough to heat your home for half a year), 390 gallons of oil and prevents 60 pounds of air pollutants. Robert Lilienfield, co-author of “Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are,” notes that if every family reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet.

Send e-cards or a personal e-mail to everyone on your list and explain why you aren’t sending a paper card. Americans send 2.6 billion holiday cards each year, so a one percent reduction could save 15,000 trees. Think of how that could help stave off global heating.

Let’s not give our extra cash to the electric company. Energy-saving Christmas lights made with light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are 90 percent more efficient than traditional Christmas lights, use 80 to 90 percent less power than conventional mini bulbs and last about 200,000 hours. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, if everyone replaced conventional holiday light strings with LEDs, at least two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity could be saved in a month. The savings would be enough to power 200,000 homes for a year.

Once you have made the commitment to celebrate a sustainable holiday season, tell people why you are doing it and be proud of taking steps to celebrate a season filled with true charity and reverence for the earth.

Contact marcianehemiah@riverreporter.com to share ideas about sustainability or to be featured in the column.

- Marcia Nehemiah