ReZoom

My mother is the Holiday Queen. The tree is up the day after Thanksgiving and down on New Year’s Day like clockwork. Holiday decorations are coordinated and complete. Presents are artfully wrapped and cards are mailed on time. This may explain why I am holiday challenged. One Christmas, I actually bought the tree on Christmas Eve as the lot workers were breaking everything down. I got a great deal on the tree, but my son hasn’t let me forget it.

Now that I see the world through greener glasses, it has changed the way I approach the holidays. I’m still not a Holiday Queen, but I am relatively easy on the environment. One of the main pastimes during the holidays is sending cards. Of all holiday cards (or any cards for that matter) the e-card is clearly the most eco-friendly.

Everyone is familiar with the free cards available through hallmark.com, but if you want to really green it up this season, send a card from care2.com. Every time you send an e-card through care2.com, you save one square foot of rainforest. So you’re not only saving a tree by sending an e-card, you’re saving yet another tree.

The advent of the e-card doesn’t necessarily mean the demise of the mailed card, but if you’re reducing that carbon footprint, some cards have smaller footprints than others. My favorites are recycled greeting cards from KidBean.com. You can choose from a number of cards made from either hemp or recycled paper. But their pièce de résistance is a line of cards that have seeds embedded in them so the recipient can plant them and watch the wildflowers grow next spring.