I’m definitely missing the sparkle that my holiday decor provided. And on a nature-y front, I’ve recently made the switch to using ALL non-toxic, plant based cleaning products (I was using some before, but with some traditional cleaners in the mix), and after giving a large jute rug a new life as the center of my seating area I’m loving the more organic look the space has and craving some accessories to keep the nature vibe going.

Our local high school’s environmental club is holding a Christmas tree recycling event this coming Saturday, so we’ll leave our decorations up for a few more days. I’m realllllly going to miss all the soft, cozy lighting, though.

Ooh! So glad to hear that there are places that recycle trees like that. We went green with our Xmas tree this year too- by renting it. Yup, we rented a LIVING Christmas tree. The company comes and drops off a tree [in a big pot ‘o dirt], you decorated it, enjoy it, and then they come back to your home a few weeks later to retrieve it. Best part of it is- you can even rent the same tree year after year so that it “grows” with your family. Tell me that is not the coolest thing you’ve ever heard! Here is the a post where I blogged about her arrival: http://tami-licious-life.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-wish.html She leaves us tomorrow but I’m already excited to see her again next year :) I just love it when people come up with creative ideas for being more green!!

I agree with r8chel, I miss the soft lighting. Also, as a fellow dweller of Planet Earth, thank you for helping take care of it and recycling your tree! That’s the bomb.

Tami – Who knew you could rent a Christmas tree???!!!! Not me.

We will be taking our faux tree down this weekend. I will miss the nice soft white light that comes from it too. But I guess I will just have to get the candles out for the rest of the year. ;-)

And thanks for recycling your tree. That is awesome. :-D And I had no idea you could rent a real tree. That is very cool and very green.

I’ve never heard of a town putting the trees in landfills. How ridiculous that they don’t recycle/chip them! Our town picks up the trees and uses them for the mulch that they’ll deliver (for a fee) in the spring/summer. We went faux this year because we were going to be gone for an extended period of time, I missed the fresh tree smell.

One of the great things about living in the San Francisco Bay Area is that we are way ahead on everything green. EVERY municipality and county has mandatory garbage, recycling and composting. That means we have 3 waste bins, one for garbage, one for all recycling (paper, plastic, aluminum, tin) and one for all of our yard and food waste – and that means all food waste! Even paper plates with food on them go in the compost bin. What is in our garbage bin is always tiny compared to the others (usually just packaging material- and it makes you really want to cut down on that). Now, when traveling, it is almost painful to have to throw things away that you know can be recycled or composted. And our Christmas trees are always picked up by the compost truck for the 3 weeks after Christmas.

Jenny – How nice to be involved in such a green community! You would probably be disgusted by the food waste we have going on currently. Definitely looking forward to reading up on composting and putting it to work for us and Mother Nature.

Hi Dana,

My fiancee and I are trying to make our condo feel a bit more homey. We don’t agree on much when it comes to color but we both love your stairwell with the stenciled tree. How did you do that? We would love to try it ourselves?

Thanks,

Aimee

Aimee – Besides picking out the image of the cherry blossom tree, I really had little role in that project! It was all Handy Hubby. See how he did it here.