In an effort to immerse myself deeper into the holiday spirit I’ve been trying many different tricks. One of my go-to’s, White Christmas; Bing Crosby’s crooning voice always seems to ignite a little holiday cheer. My other recent trick has been to eat Christmas cookies for breakfast, if it helps Santa with his Ho Ho Ho maybe it will get me caroling around town.
But I’ve found my newest holiday tradition of being crafty seems to add the needed cheer to the jingle of bells and wishes for snow. There is just something about the holidays screams home made. Last years craft project was stringing popcornand cranberries for festive garland to trim the tree. This year’s project is wrapping paper. It’s very easy to do and that is with my perfectionist seal of approval. Ask my mom; there were many Easter egg decorating days that ended in tears because of my need for the perfect creation.
This craft project is a great way to be environmentally friendly, as well as something to keep the kids busy during that long holiday vacation. Not to mention once the wrapping is strewn across the floor Christmas day you can recycle it all!
All you need is a couple rubber stamps and ink found at any craft store as well as all of the left over brown paper bags you have from your grocery shopping.
Step one: cut off the handles and the bottom of the grocery bag. Remember taking bags and wrapping your texts books in them back in the day, this is the same technique.
Step two: once you have your rectangle of paper stamp away. Easy and creative! 
Here is some motivation for you to get you stamping and recycling… did you know that American’s generate 25 million tons of trash between Thanksgiving and New Years1. To give you some visual perspective a Humpback whale weighs between 25 and 51 tons, therefore we generate about 660,000 Humpback whales worth of garbage in an eight-week period.
So not to add more to that endless list that seems to get longer as the days get darker, but a little perspective for the next time you aim for the trash can.
Happy Holidays from your Green Santa!
1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Pure.Simple.Bliss 