The holidays come with a lot of unwanted waste, such as wrapping paper, packaging and even an excess of gifts, some of which won’t last or be used for very long. With this in mind, you can remind students about the ways they can have a more meaningful holiday by recycling, reusing and reducing what they consume during this time.
 
There are many ways to reduce, reuse and recycle during the winter months, and you can encourage students to bring these ideas home with them so their families can participate as well. The easiest way to avoid waste is to skip the wrapping paper. Students can make their own roles of wrapping paper by cutting up brown paper bags from the store and decorating the paper. Instead of ribbons and bows, have students use dried flowers, holly bush twigs or pine cones. Skip the tinsel on the tree and instead encourage students to make strings for the tree out of popcorn, dried fruit and berries. After the holidays, they can hang the strings in their yards as a winter bird feeder.

Encourage students to make their own gifts with found objects. They can also make their own tags for the gifts, explaining the reason behind using recycled materials and how that helps the environment. They can also make tree ornaments by gluing beads, lace or other decorative items that can be found around the house to cinnamon sticks, making a particularly sweet smelling ornament or gift. Paper clips make great hooks for these decorations.
 
Every kitchen can use another surface to set hot dishes on, and handmade trivets can be an easy gift idea.  A great place to get materials for personalized trivets in Pittsburgh is Construction Junction, a non-profit that specializes in used and surplus building materials. Check your area for a similar organization that sells inexpensive materials.  You can find ceramic tiles for 50 cents each that can be used for the trivet project.  Use enamel paint, such as Perm-Enamel, to paint designs onto the tiles.  Bake the tiles at 350º for 20 minutes, then glue felt or flannel onto the bottom of the tiles.
 
Holiday cards are also easy to make out of materials that would eventually be discarded.  Students can go through old magazines and newspapers to find interesting graphics and pictures, cut them out and glue or tape the pictures into a collage.  If students have access to a color printer, they can make a color copy of the collage onto a slightly heavier paper stock.  These collages can be used as holiday cards, especially if the collages are copied onto card stock that can be sent through the mail as 4x6 postcards, saving both paper from the envelopes and money for the stamps.