What to give?

Photo courtesy of our friend Ahmed Alomary in Jenin, Palestine

Happy holiday season to all our friends! This year especially, how can you give sustainably to your loved ones? We all have too much stuff, and too much waste! Here are some ideas we love, and most of them don’t even need wrapping:

• Streamline your bookshelf and select books for those you know will enjoy them, wrap and share with a personal note

• Give reusable to replace single use plastics: travel coffee cups, stainless steel straws, bamboo ToGoWare utensils, beeswax cloth reusable food wraps, mesh produce bags for shopping, and fabric shopping bags; buy local when you can

• Give experiences not things: event tickets (parents especially love this if you can do it together in the future), offer of a homemade meal or chores

• Give food gifts: something you made yourself, or fair trade. At www.cananusa.com you can order fair trade food and olive oil by the bottle. You can even have it shipped directly to your far flung family and friends.

• Give gifts that give twice: support projects in Palestine that keep Palestinian farm families on their land and get a beautiful certificate to print and present saying you made a donation in their name.