A Green Christmas

I thought you might enjoy a blast from the past: an article about “A Green Christmas” I wrote for a British magazine called Mrs Beeton: Traditional Housekeeping Today. This was a glossy launch in about 1990 and I was, for a few issues, the Green Lady of Victoriana. Download the PDF here.

More to the point today, a couple of ideas for easy “green” decorating. I love the experience of cutting our own Christmas tree at Seekonk Tree Farm in Great Barrington, but the local tree farms haven’t been able to keep up with demand here in the Berkshires. I wasn’t keen to pay $80 for a tree from Canada, so I decided to fill the house with fragrant Norway spruce branches from the tree outside and lots of the holly that grows outside the front door (what I don’t cut will be stripped of berries by the birds when it gets colder).

And for a tree? Well, my lemon tree is festooned with fruit - half decorated already!

We once had a big Norfolk Island pine as a houseplant and it would have made a lovely Christmas tree, too.

With a little creativity and flexibility we can maintain the traditions we love - the smells and colors and sounds that are part of all our different solstice holidays. Whatever you celebrate, may there be good cheer, good food, and a sense of hope and renewal.

It’s become part of my Christmas traditions to share this “Live from New York” that I recorded one afternoon as I stepped out of Grand Central. It’ll make you smile!

Happy holidays!