Christmas is coming. It’s bound to be a bit different for us all this year. Covid 19 means we may not be able to have the family gatherings or Christmas cheer away from home we would normally plan. Fun with family and friends will be as important as ever. Here are a few suggestions for enjoying the festive season in spite of everything – while also treading lightly on the Earth.

  Seasonal foliage and seed heads make great arrangements. Photo: A Rae

Alternative Traditions

Start an Earth-friendly tradition in your family, such as.....

Go for a bird identification walk and record findings. Even small children can enjoy taking part.

Nature restoration activity - plant a tree together.

Decorate a tree in your garden for the birds with hanging seed balls, stuffed pine cones, suet etc.

Ask children to pick three toys they no longer play with to donate to a homeless or domestic violence shelter.

Before Christmas ask the children to write/choose a poem, play, dance, song or short story to perform (by candlelight?)on Christmas Day. Or they could make a decoration/draw a Christmas picture to hold up and share if they’re very small, or don’t like performing. 

Without being too Scroogey, perhaps think about cutting down on the number of presents? We’ve all got too much ‘stuff’ anyway.

 My daughter with five children, hosts a Boxing Day lunch  for me and her two siblings and their smaller families, and we all bring our leftovers. Several years ago, feeling uncomfortable about everyone gift buying for her brood, she suggested each adult buy a Christmas present for just one other adult and one child, with agreed spending limit. We make a real ceremony of the present exchange, the children aren’t overwhelmed, and it’s really our favourite and most relaxed day of the holiday. (Obviously each child has had presents from Father Christmas the day before.)

Alternative Ways Of Giving

You can give ethical gifts on behalf of family and friends by donating through the many charities which support people in need in the UK and worldwide, undertake vital environmental and conservation work, or protect endangered species. Once you have purchased your chosen gift, it may be forwarded by email or sent as a card or information pack to the recipient.

Money saving expert.com -deals gives a useful list of organisations which help transform the lives of the poorest people of the world in a variety of ways.

Adopt an animal. This is very popular with children, providing an information pack and, usually, a cuddly toy. Just key in Adopt an Animal Schemes, and you will find numerous animal choices, from the smallest to largest.  

GVI lists 10 organisations which help endangered animals. There are many more, such as The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), World Wildlife Trust (WWT). These have adoption schemes and undertake vital conservation work, as do the UK Wildlife Trusts.

It is also worth checking what local organisations, such as Redwings, Banham Zoo, the Hawk and Owl Trust, Hillside Animal Sanctuary and others offer in respect of gift ideas.

For the garden; how about swift or owl boxes, a hedgehog house, bird

feeder,bughouse, made from sustainable materials, or packets of wildflower seeds to attract bees and butterflies.

Alternative Decorations

It is possible to decorate festively with natural materials that after Christmas can be composted or used for Insect Hotels!

Hazel, Dogwood, Alder and   Corkscrew Willow twigs can be used in glorious branching arrangements as an alternative to a Christmas tree. Children can become enthusiastic when they realise that to choose this may save the life of fir trees which when dug up or root trimmed have little chance of survival.

Decorating the twigs with ribbons, pine- cones and animals and stars cut from discarded packaging can be an exciting and communal activity.

String, perhaps spliced in red and white, criss-crossing a room can be garlanded in the same way with cut out creatures and shapes. Simply coloured with ready-mix tempera paint, which comes in brilliant, non-toxic colours, (babies can imbibe a bit of this paint without harm), these objects make beautiful decorations. Wooden take away knives and forksdaubed with paint also look good and cast great shadows.

 Paper cut outs are decorative and fun to make. Photo: A Rae

 Paper doll concertinas are fun to make. It may take an adult to cut out the shapes but ears, eyes, clothes can be added by anyone. I recently saw a row of eight dancing Christmas Bears cut out of blue sugar paper that had been decorated with splodges ofblack and brownpaint. Eyes were small bits of orange and yellow paper tape with a black pupil coloured in and whiskers. Two of them had red mouths or tongues and pink, innerears.An enthusiastic child had given them toes and claws.

If you can wait until Christmas Eve or the day before to decorate, going out into field, wood and garden, can yield up the fun of gathering green boughs: the magical trio of yew, holly and ivy are particularly handsome. Long tendrils of ivy can twine round mirrors and picture frames; ivy berries can be painted red and Chinese lantern stems twisted between them.

While everyone’s circumstances and ideas about Christmas are different, we do hope you like some of these suggestions. We also know that many of you will have great celebratory eco-ideas of your own. It would be brilliant if you could share them with the rest of us by writing a couple of sentences to Su before November 25^th so we can all be inspired in the December issue of our splendid Forncett Flyer.

PS If you do choose to have a traditional tree, remember you can recycle it for chipping, or chop it up and stuff the bits into a hedge bottom for the wildlife to shelter in. Both better options than burning.

A very happy Christmas everyone.

Christina Wakeford, Rosemary Horner, Billy Hosea, Ally Rae

November 2020