Tis the season to be green!
Whether it’s an organic Thanksgiving or a festive holiday party, celebrate the season with friends and family by hosting a truly memorable, eco-friendly fete.

Impress guests with thoughtful holiday entertaining that promotes good cheer and good practices. From delicious, healthy holiday dishes and organic spirits, to eco-friendly cookware and natural tabletop accessories, here are a few small steps that can go a long way to ensure festivities with minimal environmental impact and tons of holiday cheer.

Farmer’s Market — Inside your Pantry!
The winter months can be a difficult time to keep your kitchen fully stocked with fresh, organic produce and ingredients. Keeping delicious, healthy organic packaged products on hand allows for quick and easy holiday dish preparation. It is becoming increasingly easy and cost-effective to keep an organic kitchen all year long with products available right on your grocery store shelves.

Del Monte Organic, for example, is a complete line of organic canned veggies including Cut Green Beans, Sweet Peas, Baby Leaf Spinach, Whole Kernel Corn, French Style Green Beans, Sliced Carrots, Diced Tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, and Crushed Tomatoes ($.59 to $1.89, available at major grocers nationwide, DelMonte.com). Like fresh counterparts, Del Monte Organic is preservative free.

And, eating organic doesn’t have to mean the holiday meal has to lose its nostalgic appeal. Simply revamp traditional family recipes with organic options. Try substituting Del Monte Organic French Style Green Beans in the traditional green bean casserole, for example.

“Eating organic foods limits you and your family’s exposure to potentially harmful pesticides, and ensures a smaller environmental footprint. Additionally, organic options often have more antioxidants than conventional foods,” says Laura Molseed, registered dietitian for Del Monte Foods.

Good Holiday Spirits
Top off the holiday cheer with organic wines and spirits. Organic wines are increasing in popularity, and crowd-pleasing choices such as Frog’s Leap, Sinskey, Sincerity, and Bonterra Vineyards are fast becoming some of America’s most renowned organic vino brands (available at www.Bonterra.com).

For a delicious non-alcoholic alternative, serve guests warm apple cider made with fresh, organic apples.

What’s Cooking
While it’s important to cook with organic ingredients and foods, it’s also important to consider meal preparation. GreenPan is the first cookware product to utilize Thermolon non-stick coating which is PTFE/PFOA-free, and will perform at high temperatures without deterioration or releasing fumes or toxic chemicals that are harmful to the environment. Additionally, 50 percent less energy is used in the manufacturing of GreenPan’s coating compared to traditional non-stick cookware and is therefore considered “green” in manufacturing (GreenPan Cookware is exclusively available at HSN, www.HSN.com).

Season’s Greetings
A thoughtful, eco-friendly holiday card serves as the perfect invitation to your gathering. While using recycled paper is a nice sentiment, try using cards or invitations made with paper that will bloom into beautiful flowers to spread an extra dose of holiday cheer. Botanical PaperWorks offers an assortment of elegant holiday cards embedded with wildflower or spruce tree seeds (available at www.botanicalpaperworks.com) that can be planted outdoors or potted. Guests will surely remember this extra special touch this holiday season.

Natural Beauty
Crisp, tasteful organic cotton table linens can add a subtle touch of natural sophistication. Organic cotton is grown using methods and materials that have a low impact on the environment.

Fresh, organically grown blooms paired with winter branches and pine cones make for beautiful and natural centerpieces. Consider local flowers found at the farmer’s market or purchase beautiful arrangements online. Organic Bouquet (www.organicbouquet.com) is the leading retailer of organic flowers. It offers floral arrangements sourced from growers that are committed to the highest social and environmental standards. Each bouquet is hand-selected and shipped fresh from the farm.

Mood Lighting
Conserve energy and dim the lights. Use soy candles or lanterns made of sustainable materials to cast a soft glow to warmly welcome guests to celebrate the holiday season with you.

Please stop by Botany's Desire Boutique for many similiar products to help keep your holiday entertaining natural and beautiful.

source green savy cafe

Hello all...I think this is something we should all consider and take seriously. I hope you feel the same and decide to slow down once in a while and enjoy just being alive.

Sandra.


Try doing just one thing at a time. Instead of cleaning while on the phone, just pick one and do it for 15 minutes. Set the timer if you need to get some help focusing.

• Cook. This might seem like adding more to your list, but there's a whole slow food movementThe Kitchn has some great inspiration and recipes to get you started. that encourages taking the time to make a meal and actually sit and enjoy it (not in front of the TV, but with friends!).

• Start and End your day with a couple minutes of breathing. Focus on breathing in and out and not on whatever your mind might be telling you. You could call this meditation. And you could do it more often if you like it.

• This goes along with doing one thing at a time and is the hardest thing for us: don't open tabs in your browser. Only read one website at a time and don't open 16 more in tabs to read later. Just one at a time (and don't spend all night doing it either!).

• Take a bath.

• Get enough sleep. Try going to bed 15-30 minutes earlier than you normally do for a week and see what that does for you.

• Make the time to call someone you love but don't get to talk to nearly enough. Maybe they live far away or your schedules don't always match, but plan to clear time in your day to just focus on talking and catching up with that person.

• Notice when you're busy. As Tim Ferris suggests, ask yourself if "you're inventing things to do to avoid the important?". That normally helps give us some perspective.

• Go for a walk (and leave the cell phone at home).

• We haven't tried this yet, but we plant to try only checking email at a couple of scheduled times int he day instead of a bajillion times all day long. We're thinking: first thing in the morning, at lunchtime, mid afternoon and in the evening. Even just saying that gives us chills: what if we miss something?

• Don't just do something, sit there. Harder than it sounds. Resist the urge to just keep busy and just sit wherever you are. You can sit until the urge passes, or just for 30 seconds as you notice the how much you want to keep buzzing around getting things done. After all when we go on vacation we have permission to just sit around, that's the beauty of a vacation. Giving yourself permission to do that in regular life can help you to really relax daily. Then you're better refreshed to get the important stuff done.

Information from Apt. Therapy and image from Will Rogers Foundation.