If you’re looking for love this Valentine’s Day you may want to take a closer look at your green habits. Timberland’s 2012 Eco-Love Survey shows that if you happen to be a fella, the more green traits you possess, the more attractive you are to women. However, the survey also showed that women flip-flop about green habits.

The survey also shows that men are also more attracted to the opposite sex when they’re green-minded, but not in such a significant way. For example, a full 56% of all women surveyed said they were likely to question dating someone with anti-environmental behaviors versus only 47% of men who said the same.

Other juicy bits from this survey:

• Women hate litterers. While many women also didn’t like guys who fail to recycle or guys who leave lights on, littering was by far the biggest sin for women.

• Women are 47% more likely than men to think people who spend time volunteering for environmental causes are attractive.

• Women are 17% more likely than men to find people who practice eco-minded behaviors around the house attractive.

• Men (58%) and women (56%) both said they were more attracted to mates who enjoy spending time in nature. In fact, almost 60% of men and women said the most ideal way to meet someone was while out and about in nature.

• Both genders like mates who consider the eco-impact of their purchases, but this habit was less significant than many other green habits.

As for the perfect eco-date, here’s what folks said would be ideal (or not so ideal):

• Going on an outdoor adventure (e.g., hiking, walking in the park, etc.) 54%
• Dining at a restaurant that serves locally grown and/or organic food 31%
• Participating in projects to improve the environment (e.g., planting trees, joining nature
• conservation projects, etc.) 23%
• Volunteering to clean up a public place 21%

The oddest point of this survey, in my opinion, was that although women claim to be more attracted to eco-minded men, women were not as tolerant when it came to more extreme eco-behaviors.

Many women said if their date insisted they order environmentally responsible food options it would turn them off. 52% of women said they’d be annoyed if their date showed up on a bike vs. in a car. Women also said they weren’t fond of dates bringing reusable take-out containers or tableware to a restaurant or dates who always stop to pick up litter. Come on ladies – make up your mind!

In general, men were more tolerant of the above eco-behaviors on a date. Score for the fellas!

Do you look for eco-traits in a date – or did you before you partnered up? 

+ Timberland 2012 Eco-Love Survey (pdf)

Image by plrang via sxc.

Interior design may be the last thing you think about when it comes to energy savings, but in reality, how you arrange your furniture can either help or hinder energy use. Especially in chilly winter.

Try these quick tips to save energy and money:

Beds in front of windows are good in summer but chilly in winter.

• Don’t place beds next to windows – it can be drafty.

• Do drape cozy blankets across couches and chairs to encourage their use vs. the use of an energy draining heater.

• Don’t arrange your furniture around the television, because most likely, it’ll just encourage folks to turn it on.

• Do arrange your furniture in such a way that motivates family gathering and conversation. Such as, place couches and chairs around a nice table, with space for board games underneath. If you don’t have room under the table, place a nice little shelf in the living space with games and books on it. You may also consider keeping your TV enclosed in a shelving unit with doors.

• Don’t keep kids in the dark. Kids need light to play, so design a nice play space or art station for your kids in the brightest room of the house. Use smaller light sources near kids beds for reading.

• Do have one nice light source in your main living space instead of many lamps. Arranging reading spaces around one light source can save energy.

• Don’t face couches and chairs towards an outside entry way. If you fail to block air drafts that come under doors, this can make for more chilly seating.

• Do place eco-friendly soy candles or LED candles out and about, especially in the dining room. Eating by candlelight is fun.

• Don’t forget windows. Cover those suckers up with nice drapes.

Wishing your green family a wonderful Christmas day (if you celebrate). Try to get outside for a nice winter walk with the family today.

If you’re scrounging for last-minute holiday gifts, a good book can’t be beat and is easy to find, even last-minute, so long as you have a local bookstore in town. I’ve reviewed many books, and below are some of my favorites – all are perfect for growing green families too!

• Celebrate Green!
• Eco-nomical Baby Guide
• Green Guide Families: The Complete Reference for Eco-Friendly Parents
• HAPPYBABY The Organic Guide to Baby’s First 24 Months
• How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum
• How to Plant a Tree: A Simple Celebration of Trees and Tree-Planting Ceremonies
• Ice Pop Joy
• I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas
• Organically Raised: Conscious Cooking for Babies and Toddlers

If you’re looking for some books for a family that loves to prepare food together, check out my list of green and healthy cookbooks. There are also some books around that I haven’t reviewed yet, but I have read and recommend, that will also make great gifts, such as:

• The Organic Family Cookbook
• The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture
• Easy Green Living: The Ultimate Guide to Simple, Eco-Friendly Choices for You and Your Home
• Gorgeously Green: 8 Simple Steps to an Earth-Friendly Life
• How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office

Some green-minded books for the kiddos:

• The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth
• Green Start Book Towers: Little Animal Books: 10 Chunky Books Made from 98% Recycled Materials
• Recycled Crafts Box
• The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth
• EcoArt!: Earth-Friendly Art and Craft Experiences for 3-To 9-Year-Olds (Williamson Kids Can!)
• Good Earth Art: Environmental Art for Kids (Bright Ideas for Learning)
• To Market, to Market
• Green Crafts for Children: 35 Step-by-Step Projects Using Natural, Recycled, And Found Materials
• New Treehouses of the World

I previously posted a gingerbread cookie recipe here at GAGF. However, over the years, I’ve realized that the more I make this specific recipe the less I like it.

First of all I think the recipe above lacks enough molasses and I wasn’t getting the spices perfect. Secondly, while it can turn out softer, chewier cookies, if you mess up and leave said cookies in the oven for a few seconds too long, you’re sunk. Also, if you want to get into aesthetics, the color of these cookies is not great. All-in-all, somewhere along the way I decided I hated this recipe - sorry if you made them and felt the same way.

New & improved gingerbread cookies

That said, I’ve been working on it, and I’ve come up with a gingerbread cookie recipe that’s not only much tastier but gorgeous in color. Best of all, these cookies stay soft. I HATE crispy gingerbread cookies. While you can make thinner, crunchier gingerbread with this recipe if you like, it’s also the perfect dough for softer, more chewy cookies.

Bonus, the dough is extremely easy to work with; not stiff or sticky at all.

Any cons?

• These are soft – so they need to be cooled 100% before you stack them or decorate them or they can bend.

• Harder to glaze than typical crisper gingerbread.

• I had a few break while decorating them – mainly with cookies I glazed or cookies with small points – i.e. snowflakes. They’re a bit more fragile than other gingerbread cookies I’ve made. I suggest making a little more dough than you think you need.

Gather the following ingredients – this makes about 3-4 dozen average sized cookies

• 3 cups all-purpose organic flour – don’t use bread flour!

• 3/4 packed cup organic brown sugar – dark brown would be best, but the other day, all I could find was normal organic brown sugar at my local store. I used it, and it was just fine. Organic brown sugar tends to run darker than conventional anyhow.

• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1-1/2 sticks organic butter, slightly softened – salted, unsalted, whatever you’ve got on hand. I’ve used both.

• 3/4 cup Fair Trade, organic molasses – I’ve heard all about mild vs. robust molasses, but I’m not a chef genius, so I couldn’t tell you the difference. I use Wholesomes Sweetners – Organic Molasses.

• 2 tablespoons organic milk – Use any milk you like – whole, 2%, soy. The point is to help add some liquid quality to the dough, so type doesn’t matter. We usually keep 1% in the house, so I used that.

Spices – use the spices below as posted or adjust them to your liking. Changing up spices is a matter of taste, it won’t wreak your cookies to add less ginger or more nutmeg. If you grate your own spices, use less though, because fresh are more potent than ground.

• 1 tablespoon ground organic cinnamon
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoon ground organic ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground organic cloves
• Dash of organic nutmeg

Other traditional gingerbread-minded spices that I don’t use, but you may want to consider include: anise seed, coriander, cardamom, fennel seed, star anise and ground black pepper.

• Decorated homemade organic soft gingerbread cookies

   

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• Combine dry ingredients

   

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• Cut in butter

   

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• Mix molasses and milk

   

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• Stir wet ingredients into the dry

   

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• Mix until everything is well combined

   

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• Pat part of your dough onto a piece of parchment

   

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• Cut shapes in your dough

   

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• Leave some room around each cookie, since you'll be peeling back the dough

   

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• Cool completely before decorating or storing

   

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• Decorating ideas

   

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• Decorating ideas

   

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• Decorating ideas

   

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Making your soft gingerbread cookies

• Combine the flour, salt, baking soda and spices in a large bowl.

• Add your sugar and mix until well combined.

• Toss your softened butter into the flour mixture and cut the butter in with a pastry cutter. This isn’t pie making, so soft butter is a-okay, no need for the butter to be cold. Cut the butter in until the flour mixture resembles small shreds or balls.

• In a small bowl whisk your molasses and milk together, then drizzle the molasses mixture over your flour mixture.

• Mix everything together until well combined. It’s a little hard to mix near the end, but a decent wooden spoon will do the job.

• At this point you’ll have a bowl of velvety smooth dough. Now, you can chill your dough for a bit if you like, but I didn’t. I don’t like working with stiff dough.

• After chilling (or now, if you don’t chill) grab a third of the dough and pat it into a ball onto a piece of parchment paper. Notice in the slide-show above that I DID NOT sprinkle flour on the parchment or the dough. This dough is awesome. It won’t stick to your parchment at all, no flour needed.

• If you want nice soft, chewy cookies, roll your dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness. For crisper cookies, roll the dough thinner. For super soft cookies, roll the dough even thicker – I didn’t try this, but I’m guessing thicker than 1/4 inch cookies will need an extra minute or so in the oven.

• Use cookie cutter to cut shapes into your dough. Once you’ve used up all the space, peel away the excess dough, so you’re left with a bunch of cookie shape on your parchment.

• Now, because this dough is soft, transferring the cookies to a cookie sheet can be a bit tricky, but not bad. You can either pick up the whole darn parchment and slide it onto a cookie sheet, or carefully lift each cookie with a spatula and place them on your cookie sheet. Either way though, you should prepare your cookie sheet with parchment.

• Bake these at 350 degrees for no longer than 7 to 8 minutes. They should still look a bit undone, but remember, they’ll keep setting up a little after they’re out of the oven.

• As soon as possible get them off the hot pan and onto a cooling rack. My cookies easily transferred to my cooling rack after a minute.

• Cool entirely before decorating.

Decorating your cookies

Decorating your gingerbread cookies

You’ve got various decor choices available, including glaze, frosting, (glaze + frosting), sugar sprinkles or other candy adornments. To make a basic cookie glaze, see the glaze recipe in my organic pumpkin cupcake post. To make frosting, keep reading…

Basic cookie frosting:

• Whip 1/3 cup of butter until creamy.
• Mix in 2 cups organic powdered sugar.
• Add a dash of organic, Fair Trade vanilla extract and 1/4 cup of organic milk.
• Add another 2 and 1/2 cups of powdered sugar.
• Mix everything until creamy smooth and well combined. You can do this by hand, but I use a small inexpensive hand mixer for better results.

If it’s too thick you can add a bit more milk. You can also substitute 1/4 cup fresh organic orange juice + 1 teaspoon finely shredded orange peel for the milk in this recipe if you’d like an orange flavored frosting, which goes well with gingerbread. This frosting can be spread on cookies or piped on with a reusable pastry bag for design work. You can also color it with natural food coloring. I use India Tree Natural Decorating Colors.

Other decorating options:

• Indian Tree Decorating Sugars
• India Tree Snowflakes
• India Tree Boughs of Holly Party Decoratifs

For Christmas this year, Cedar and I were going to make homemade wool felt play food kits for the kids in our family, as holiday gifts. However, we’re not the best sewers. We made some and did okay, but we need more practice before our sewing crafts are gift-ready. Still, since we wanted to make homemade gifts vs. buy toys or something else, we had some brainstorming sessions and settled on homemade recycled chunky crayons and homemade memory games.

Homemade memory game

If you’re looking for a fun homemade gift project that your child can help with (my ten-year-old easily helped to make these) then this game is a great fit. Memory is fun and educational for young children. This game can help teach shapes, colors and words. You could even make a game with matching numbers or letters to help teach other early childhood comprehension skills.

This homemade memory game is also quick (so last minute if necessary) and allows you to use up excess paper scraps and stickers you have laying around the house. Plus it’s very inexpensive and nice if you’re aiming for a low-cost, non-commercial holiday.

Time taken: About two evenings of concentrated work – all-in-all we made games for three kids in about 6 hours. Not bad. It would have been faster had we used wooden squares vs. stars because there would have been no tracing and exact cutting involved, but the stars are soooo darn cute.

Cost – about $15 for three kids: We looked for a sale and found some wooden stars for about $15 in bulk packs. We had paper, glue and the other stuff laying around the house.

Odds and ends to make your game

Here’s what you’ll need

• Wooden shapes. These are easily found at most craft stores. If you’re super crafty and have some sort of wood shop, you could make your own, but alas, that’s not us. Most people go with squares or circle, but for fun, we decided to go with stars. You can also find thick recycled cardboard squares or make some, but after making some game pieces with both wood and cardboard, we felt the wood looked a lot better and felt more sturdy.

• Water based glue and sealer. 

• Scrap paper and some large sheets of matching paper for the backs of the game pieces.

• Design items – Stickers, paint or more scrap paper for the design side. I.e. the side with the two matching objects.

• Little bags (which you could make with reuse fabric) or small recycled boxes.

• Pencil, scissors and a bit of sandpaper.

Be sure to mark odd sized wooden shapes so you can match the shape to the paper

Making your game

• If using star shapes trace the stars onto your paper then cut the stars out. Note – because wooden stars vary in size, be sure to mark a little arrow on your star and on the back of your paper so you know how the paper fits onto the wood. If using a uniform shape, it’s a lot easier. Simply trace one piece, then cut the rest of your paper to the same size.

• Coat your wood with the water based glue/sealer, then press the paper on firmly. Repeat until all your wood pieces have one side that match (i.e. the side you lay out to start the game).

• Then choose matching scraps of paper or stickers or even paint matching designs on the other sides of your wood.

• Coat your wood pieces, front and back with two or three coats of sealer – this will make the paper much less likely to come off in little hands.

• Sand any rough edges with a bit of sandpaper. This is a good job for a kid helper.

• You can put the finished game in a little reusable fabric drawstring bag or small recycled box.

A sweet pink version!

Tips

• You can make a memory game like this with real photos of people your child knows. The sealer works on photos.

• We’re making our games for kids who are two through four, so we picked easily recognizable designs for young children – i.e. strawberries, flowers, bees, ants and so on.

Fun to stack

• Consider making theme games such as holiday, birthday, Easter, Valentine’s day or so on.

Use lots of different matching images

• Experiment with different shapes of wood, plenty of color and even different sizes – all of which help young children learn new things. Fun shapes can be used for stacking fun too.

Great for homemade labels

• Be sure to add a little label about how to play the game. I found some adorable wooden labels (shown above) stockpiled in my craft drawer which would work great – but you could print out a label on the computer too.

Previously I wrote about how the winter holiday season has been over-saturated with stuff and overspending. I’ve been meaning to do a follow-up about how to combat a consumer holiday, but sorry, I got a little behind here. Life has been nuts lately. There’s still plenty of December left though and that means many chances to have a less consumer-based holiday season. Take a look at the tips below. Maybe they’ll help you have a nicer, less consumer, more family focused holiday season.

CONSUMER-FREE ESSENTIALS

Come up with a plan

The best way to combat holiday consumerism is to think things through before hand and to have a solid family focused plan in place. This is tough for a lot of us, myself included. Try discussing the issue with your family and friends early on. Talk about what sort of holiday you’d like to have, plus stuff you’ve liked or not liked about holidays past. If you need some good celebration ideas read I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas and Celebrate Green.

Start creating traditions when your kids are young

Getting older kids to convert from a stuff-based holiday to a more activity and family focused holiday is very hard. Kids raised to value stuff over people will obviously not value holiday celebrations. Encourage kids from an early age that holidays are about hanging out with family and giving over simply getting presents. It’s best to raise kids right from the start, rather than switch it up later. Keep in mind that discussing green holidays and family-based celebrations does not take away from the magic of the season.

• Kids can be savvy consumers

Convert older kids and others

If you’ve spent years celebrating gifts and stuff vs. family time, you’ll need to adjust everyone’s train of thought. Discuss how consumer-driven holidays don’t appeal anymore and discuss ways to make changes. This is one of those times that you’ll need to fess up to your child that you’ve been wrong, especially if you’ve been over-showering the holidays with gifts galore up to this point. Change can happen, but don’t expect it to happen overnight.

• Common behaviors of kids with overly consumer holiday values
• 10 best ways to raise greedy kid
• How parents and other adults can avoid commercialism

GO EXTREME

Celebrate a Buy Nothing Christmas this year.

Yup, it’s way outside the norm, but also an excellent challenge and will still be fun to boot. If this seems to extreme, at least take the 2011 Simplify the Holidays Challenge, which allows you to scale back, without scaling back entirely. Need help planning your Buy Nothing Christmas? See the following:

• Buy Nothing Christmas FREE information kit
• Buy nothing shopping catalog
• Ideas about gifts you don’t purchase

There’s no reason to spend a lot of money on stocking stuffers, even if you want to go green this holiday season. There are plenty of delightful green stocking stuffers for teens and younger kids that are $10 or less.

STOCKING STUFFERS FOR BABIES

• Dandelion Soft Shaker Bear Toy - This cute rattle is stuffed with fluffy natural corn fibers and made with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified bamboo velour.

• Miyim Simply Organic Petite Plush Toy Ben Frog or Annabelle Lamb - adorable little organic miYim dolls, made from all natural materials including organic cotton and plant and mineral dyes.

• Small Play Silk - Babies love play silks for peek-a-boo and other games, plus these silks are smaller (baby-sized) and beautiful. Available in 22″ or 35″ squares in a variety of colors, or sets of all six pastel or vibrant rainbows hues. Hand dyed in the USA made with China silk by a woman-owned company.

• Under the Nile Organic Veggie & Fruit Toys - Perfect baby teething toys that look like yummy veggies and fruits and are made with 100% organic cotton.

• Odd Ducks – Fun galore in the tub and BPA and toxin free. Plus if you buy them in a four pack they’re just around $6 each – great if you have more than one kid.

STOCKING STUFFERS FOR TODDLERS

• Wooden Top - A sweet top made with different wooden pieces of different colors, carved into a smooth shape. This product is Fair Trade, made by HSSS, a non-profit organization that works for the uplifting and development of underprivileged artisans.

• Cosmic Spinner - Dazzling birch wood spinning tops that are easy to spin and make cool patterns. Each spinner is laser cut in a different pattern. Made in the USA .

• Organic Velour Finger Puppet – Made with organic cotton these tiny puppets are cute and interactive.

• Plan Toys Mushroom Kaleidoscope in Green or festive Red – Made of natural, chemical free recycled rubberwood and finished with non-toxic water based dye.

• Triangular Crayons Extra Jumbo (12 colors) - Made with non-toxic, proprietary materials that color beautifully. These are also ergonomic shaped and won’t roll away from little hands. Bonus, no  messy paper wrapper waste.

STOCKING STUFFERS FOR KIDS

• Itty Bitty Red and Green Holly Baby - Super sweet itty bitty red and green Holly Babies are small enough to accompany your child everywhere he or she goes. All natural fiber doll. Made by Evi in Brazil – Fair Trade.

• Grandpa’s Yo-Yo - Beautifully colored natural yo-yo toys with zero plastic pieces, lights or sounds. Made in the USA by the enchanting and ethical Camden Rose.

• Green Toys Recycled Jump Rope - A great healthy stocking stuffer by Green Toys. Made with 100% cotton and 100% recycled plastic handles in the USA.

• Magic Wands- An essential small toy for any up-and-coming princess, fairy, magician, or wizard. Made from hardwood and non-toxic paint and finishes in the USA. Color choices: Pink, Purple, or Yellow.

• Keeki Pure and Simple - Keeki Pure and Simple uses as many organic raw materials as possible in their products and their nail colors are free from parabens, phthalates and other toxic ingredients. Nail polishes are also gluten-free, toluene-free, vegan, made in the USA and never tested on animals. Many festive holiday color choices available and one of the best priced polishes for tots too.

• JJ’s wooden knife kits - A unique introduction to the craft of woodworking, this kit features genuine spring action, unsharpened blades with rounded corners. Easy instructions. Made in the USA with Cherry, Maple or Walnut wood.

STOCKING STUFFERS FOR TEENS

• Eco Hackysack/Juggling Ball - A fun tie-dyed, eight-panel footbag/juggling ball. Great for a round of hackey-sack, to display your juggling prowess, or for a game of catch. Made in Romania from 100% eco-hemp canvas and is fully biodegradable.

• All The Better To Kiss You Lip Gloss - Yummy eco USDA certified organic lip balm that comes in a vintage tin. Available in Lavender Vanilla, Pepperminty, Pomegranate or Chai Mandarin – also comes in a set. 100% natural, paraben free, cruelty-free. Made in USA and the company plants a tree with every purchase.

• Priti Mini Flowers - Adorable little bottles of nail color that are safe for your teen. Completely non-toxic and free from the big bad three – toluene, formaldehyde and DBP’s. A wide color range is available.

• No Enemy tri-fold wallet – This No Enemy tri-fold wallet is made of 100% hemp and is a more eco-friendly way for your teen to carry his cash.

• Pop In The Bath Bubble Bar by LUSH - Solid bubble bath without packaging waste. There are also Lush soaps that will appeal to teen boys as well, such as  Demon In The Dark Soap.

• Guitar String Bracelet - Handmade in the U.S. with recycled guitar string, lead-free nickel and brass. Designed by Hannah Garrision & Steve Bernstein.

• String Dolls - Cute fun that everyone loves. Fair Trade and awesome.

STOCKING STUFFERS FOR CRAFTY KIDS

• Clementine Art Natural Modeling Dough – 3 Pack of Lemon, Lime and Strawberry - Soft, crumble-free non-toxic dough. All natural and washable. Colored with turmeric, carmine and spinach, and scented with strawberry, lemon and lime.

• Build and Decorate your own Dinosaur or Steamer - Tiny toys that kids will love to build and decorate. All pieces are already pre-punched on stable, white cardboard and can be put together without glue and scissors. Creative, fun and fully recyclable.

• Crazy Crayons Eco Stars (100% Recycled Crayons) - Non-toxic and recycled crayons in a fun holiday shape.

• Stockmar Modelling Beeswax Bars - This festive holiday set comes with 2 red bars and 2 green bars. Non-toxic, creative and kid-safe.

• 8 Holiday Crayon Rocks - Crayons rocks are one of the best small stocking stuffers. Very sturdy (i.e.. won’t break in a stocking) plus fun for little hands and non-toxic.

Here are some consumer holiday spending facts to ponder…

In 2010 consumers spent an estimated $648 million on Black Friday. This year, according to ComScore, consumers spent a whopping $816 million online alone, making Black Friday the heaviest spending day on the Internet so far in 2011. That’s a Black Friday sales increase of about 26% since last year.

However, all the shopping madness wasn’t over on Black Friday. Last year, Cyber Monday sales reached an all time high of $1.028 billion, and Forbes originally estimated that the current trend would hold, thus, this year’s sales would increase. Forbes was right on the money. MarketLive, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class eCommerce technology and services, just announced that 2011 Cyber Monday revenue increased 26 percent over last year. According to comScore, this year’s Cyber Monday was the biggest online spending day in history, with revenues of $1.25 billion in the United States.

On top of that… Consumer Reports notes that not only do shoppers spend more than they plan on these mega shopping days, but 45% of Americans who made a budget last year exceeded it and about 14.1 million adults are still carrying debt from the 2010 holiday season.

TOTAL INSANITY! 

The National Retail Federation forecasts that the average American will spend around $700+ on holiday shopping in 2011, and those figures are likely low, since every year many consumers go well over budget. In any case, this is completely unnecessary. Plus keep in mind that these statistics are regarding individuals, not families. Typically, in a family with two parents, research says they’ll BOTH spend that average $700+, so in reality many two-parent families are spending anywhere from $1,400 to $2,000 a year on Christmas. Worst of all, most of this money isn’t even going toward an eco-friendly holiday.

How much I spent in 2010

Last year, I tracked my spending carefully, and I spent about $250 on everything Christmas related, including gifts, food, decor and everything else. Keep in mind that except for one item (Legos), all the gifts I gave were eco-friendly too, so the whole idea of having to spend more for a green holiday is bunk. Had I gotten my act together and made some homemade gifts, I’d have spent even less. This year, my goal is to have a fun holiday while spending even less $.

This isn’t about hating on Christmas

This isn’t about being a Grinch and killing Christmas dreams. I like Christmas as much as anyone. However, I don’t like how it’s become so commercial, so stuff oriented and less about family celebrations.  I’m also not advocating a perfectly stuff-free Christmas. Gifts are nice, it’s all the excessive behavior that gets me. I think consumer holidays are especially detrimental to kids and I also think you can have both gifts and family time without all the super greedy consumerism issues.

* 50 ideas about how to have a nicer, less consumer, more family focused Christmas (coming soon)

Lead image via Flickr user jbhthescots

Kamibashi is just about the cutest shop ever, and eco-friendly to boot. I especially love their String Doll Gang.

The String Doll Gang is a band of awesome fun character keyrings, handmade with Fair Trade practices in Thailand. Each String Doll has his or her own special flavor and a power that is positive and helpful, making them a great gift for every member of your family. Every String Doll comes with a double-sided fabric tag explaining their character and a lobster claw keyring. These are safe for kids over eight (some have tiny parts).

Bonus, each sweet little doll is just $10 a pop, so these are perfect as eco-friendly stocking stuffers, but cool enough for a stand-alone gift too. Also, the company service is great. They got me my dolls super speed fast and actually sent me an email thanks you last year after I order some of these for the holidays.

AstroNeil, Ollie & E-Moe String Dolls

Last year for the holidays I gave my son Cedar the adorable AstroNeil. I got two other folks Ollie and E-Moe. This year, if you’re looking for a sweet, small gift, you have to check out their new adorable Gingerbread Man String Doll!

Gingerbread Man String Doll

This new little doll is super cute for Christmas, but if you’re not totally in love with Gingerbread Man, there are other winter holiday String Dolls to choose from too – see the gallery below.

• Christmas DreamTeam – Two String Dolls – Santy & Rudy for a special low price! You can also buy them separately.
• Snowy
• Shredder Girl & Boy
• Elfy
• Snowflake
• Gigi the Panda – not holiday minded, but just in case your kids are panda obsessed.

With dozens of choices, there really is a String Doll out there to suit every personality. Which means you can shop here for all your office mates, extended family and so fourth, for just $10 each and be done with your shopping early! That’s a good gift for you and your friends.

+ String Doll Gang $10 each