Every year, we reinvent our holiday traditions just a little, making them uniquely ours. We decorate our own wreaths, or bake cookies as a family, or take the kids to a local center to donate toys to kids in need. Local mom Heather Burns-DeMelo, a sustainability strategist who founded ctgreenscene.com, has decided that making her family’s holidays more environmentally friendly would be part of that reinvention. “Like many new parents, I carefully considered how I wanted my children to experience the holidays,” Burns-DeMelo says. “There were fond memories of my own childhood experiences that I wanted to integrate, such as making gifts and Christmas tree ornaments, but my main focus was on creating ways to connect to each other, rather than to objects.”

 For Burns-DeMelo, that has meant giving edible gifts over plastic ones, and purchasing “experience” gifts for loved ones, from a massage package to concert tickets or museum admissions. These are gifts that save on wasteful packaging and allow the gift-giver to support local businesses, one of the best (and easiest) ways to go green. Products from a chain outlet come with a lot of transportation miles attached—which means they contribute to carbon-dioxide emissions. And they usually come wrapped in excess plastic and packaging, which goes, along with that store-bought wrapping paper, straight into the garbage can. A local spa package, or Beardsley Zoo or Stepping Stones Museum admission, or a ticket for a theater show, at the community theater or the Fairfield Theater Co. will leave gift recipients with something to look forward to right in their own communities.

What’s more, hunting for local, environmentally friendly gifts can be fun, and produce one-of-a-kind finds. In Fairfield at The Pantry (thepantry.com), you can pick up Willoughby’s fair-trade organic Ethiopian coffee—roasted in Connecticut—or a gift basket stocked with tea, fruit, nut spreads and chocolate ($30). You might opt for green gifts or home- design accents from Oock in Bedford (oockgreendesign.com) such as Daub & Bauble Orange & Clove hand wash and lotion for gardening enthusiasts ($24/set) or organic bedding and pillows. And there are all sorts of green gift ideas—from fair-trade wooden toys to recycled glass earrings to Brelli biodegradable umbrellas at Practically Green in Ridgefield (gopracticallygreen.com). Part of the holiday spirit has been lost as we’ve traded strolling local downtowns and exploring the offerings for online shopping from anonymous retailers. And nothing could be healthier for you—or the environment—than parking the car and walking from shop to shop. 

Greening the Holiday Table
For many families, the kitchen is the best place to make healthier—and environmentally friendlier—improvements around the holidays. It’s no secret that local food tastes better—but it’s also a great environmental improvement over having food shipped long distances, which accounts for a lot of pollution as planes, ships, and trucks bring produce and meats from faraway farms and feedlots to chain supermarkets. In fact, most of the food you eat travels 1,500 miles before it reaches your kitchen. The most vigilant “locavores,” people who seek out almost exclusively locally grown and produced items, won’t travel outside of a 100-mile radius to find their foodstuffs. The good news for Connecticut locavores is that by staying in-state, you’re almost guaranteed to meet that condition. Connecticut—the country’s third-smallest state—is less than 60 miles across, and just 120 miles on the diagonal.

And you don’t need more than a laptop to keep abreast of Connecticut’s fresh happenings. Deb Marsden, who lives in East Haddam, began the service, Connecticut Farm Fresh Express, in February 2008, and delivers fresh fruit and vegetables, free-range turkeys, grass-fed beef, seafood, cheeses, maple syrup, honey, and other rotating items from nearly 40 Connecticut farms right to residents’ doorsteps. Similar to the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, in which people pay a monthly fee to a farm that delivers baskets of produce to their doorstep each week, customers log on to the website (ctfarmfreshstore.com), check out the listings, and order what they’d like. Says Marsden: “You order when you want, how much you want.” During the winter months there are still plenty of options, from staples to specialties: hydroponic lettuce, potatoes and onions, garbanzo beans, creamy goat-milk cheese, organic eggs, pear cider, oysters, herbs, and French country bread. She delivers on Fridays, and charges for deliveries based on location. Madsen says a trip to Fairfield, for example, would cost $15.

Pair any combination of these local delights with organic—or local—wine for a green holiday twist. From an environmental standpoint, you’ll have to decide whether the distance the wine travels is more an issue than how the grapes were grown. For Burns-DeMelo, supporting wineries that grow grapes without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and make the wine without added preservatives or sulfites, is key. “I do wish more Connecticut vineyards would switch over to organic-farming practices,” she says. Top organic varieties include the holiday-ready rosé from Bonterra Vineyards in Mendocino County, California ($17), and the full, fruity pinot grigio from Mont Albano in Friuili, Italy. There may not be organic Connecticut wineries, but there are plenty of local vineyards, particularly up in Litchfield County. Hopkins Vineyard (hopkinsvineyard.com) in New Preston has a celebration-worthy selection from sparkling wines to semi-sweet and sweet varietals. Land of Nod Vineyard in Canaan (landofnodwinery.com) specializes in fruit wines.

The Little Things 
You can replace those heavily scented holiday candles with greener varieties, too, this year, a switch that will improve indoor air quality. Regular candles are made from paraffin which is petroleum-based. That means they release carbon dioxide and soot when burned. And the added chemical fragrances (in addition to the soot) can be major triggers to allergy/asthma sufferers. Soy wax candles are a great green alternative—they’re made from biodegradable, renewable soybean oil, and they burn clean and soot-free. They can have fragrant holiday scents, too, but these are added with oils, not chemicals. Kat Burki Home in Southport offers a large variety of hand-poured soy candles in yummy aromas, such as Hot Toddy, White Tea, and Freesia & Pink Grapefruit. It would make a great housewarming gift, leaving behind a cozy holiday scent.

But while all your guests will appreciate a local cheese platter or inviting holiday scent, not all will respond as well to an impersonal e-card, however environmental its intentions. E-mailing your warm wishes may be a good green substitute for certain work associates, but for family and friends, one Fairfield designer’s company, Heaven’s to Betsy! (heavenstobetsy.net), offers 100-percent recycled cards and stationery that evoke classic holiday images from antique engravings and woodcuts. There is a simple New England house in winter, snowflakes in a quilt formation, and a shepherd keeping watch over his flock (eight cards with matching envelopes, $12/box). Company founder Betsy Goodenough left a career in advertising to start the business in 1998 and “finds inspiration every day in the natural beauty which surrounds her.”

Part of greening your holiday celebration, even in little ways, is about reclaiming the enjoyment of the season. The more impersonal and commercial our holidays become, the less delight they bring—to us, or to the ones who are tearing open the presents we bought on sale at the nearest major retailer. Searching local stores for unique finds, nibbling cheeses and baked goods from nearby farms, sharing thoughtful, handmade gifts, and supporting our community businesses can begin to bring back the holiday warmth that we’ve been missing.