New years and Christmas is all about giving love and spending quality time with your loved ones. However, we humans are often unable to give the same love to our surroundings. Holidays shouldn't affect the environment in a negative way. It's a well known fact that holidays and festivals are often accompanied by harmful human activities that give rise to environmental problems. 

As people of the 21st century who are advocating for a number of social and environmental problems, the responsibility of promoting environmentally sustainable practices lies on our shoulders. The responsibility of preserving the gifts of nature we receive, for our future generations. Let's not take away their share of nature's gift and fill everyone's life with love. Hopefully many of us will be able to learn something new from this blog post. 

Ways to promote ecologically sustainable holidays:

• Long lasting presents:

With the rapid growth of the fashion industry and fast fashion practices, it has become a necessity that we buy long lasting products for our own use as well as when we pick gifts for others. The microplastics as well as synthetic fibres used in clothes for the purpose of beautification can be fatal for marine organisms. The clothes which aren't recyclable end up accumulated as landfills which is hazardous for our environment. Therefore, it's important that we buy long-lasting products for our loved ones which are environmentally friendly. 

• Using recyclable gift papers for wrapping presents:

Who doesn't love to receive beautifully packed presents! Especially children love their gifts packed in colourful gift papers. Sadly, this joy comes at the cost of environmental pollution. The gift papers have no further use and end up in the trash can soon after the gift is opened. It's not bad to pack your gifts in an attractive way but we must do it in a way that doesn't affect the environment. The best way to deal with this issue is to buy recyclable or recycled paper. I'd suggest writing a small note on the other side of the gift papers to ensure that the receivers won't recklessly throw it away but will dispose of it in a recycling bin. 

• Reusing decorations:

Having parties and gatherings with your loved ones is a ritual most of us have every year during holidays. We decorate our house to create a beautiful atmosphere. It truly cheers up everyone and reminds us of our customs and values. But, is it truly necessary to buy new decorations each year? This stuff is made up of plastics and other stuff which needs to be recycled and reused. To make sure that we celebrate our holidays in an ecofriendly way, we should reuse decorations and promote this practice. There's no shame in advocating for the right of our progeny to a clean environment. Let's end these norms and promote environmental sustainability. 

• Plant trees as an act of giving gifts to our environment:

On the occasions of happiness and love, we shouldn't forget our environment and those who are underprivileged. Since this blog post is targeted to create awareness regarding environmental problems, I'm going to emphasise on the necessity of gifting our nature. This will serve as a gift for our future generations as well. We have the responsibility of preserving the trees our ancestors planted and to plant more trees for our future generations. We can see the importance and significance of planting via looking at the pine trees in California, olive trees in Palestine and cocao trees found in Western Africa. These are few of countless examples of the natural gifts our ancestors planted for us. 

• Sending Evites to reduce paper consumption:

With the advancement in technology, we have the privilege of sending out invitations electronically in place of traditional paper invitations. This is a quicker as well as an ecofriendly way to send our personalized invitations. This doesn't only offer environmental benefits but it also allows us to have customised invitations for each guest. 

We should encourage this practice to reduce paper waste and deforestation. Such invitations are called “Evites” and allow the guests to RSVP within a few seconds. A number of ways and beautiful templates are available on the internet to make your evite eye-catching and interactive. 

Conclusively, our holidays should be about giving love to our loved ones and our surroundings. Expressing our gratitude towards the countless gifts we have received from the nature, we should promote sustainable practices. Let's give the gift of sustainability to our environment and the gift of preserving nature to our progeny. Reduce carbon footprint and make choices that affect our future in a positive way. Create awareness about environment sustainability by taking small steps on an individual level to ensure a green and bright future! Happy holidays to each one of you out there.