1) Holiday Guide Intro & Hot Links
Let the jingle bells ring! The Holiday season has begun!
It’s time to hang your ‘home-made’ stockings by the chimney with care, and fill your holiday entertaining menu with delicious hand-made take-away treats from jane’s next door or Local Source Market.
It’s time to take a few minutes for yourself… for people, planet and community, and explore “Eco-Local Gifting”, the CRUSISIS Holiday Guide to Sustainable Living ‘09. And be sure to check out our Hot Links (scroll to the bottom) for our favorite selections from our Holiday Guide ‘09!
Holiday '09 Guide Theme
In our last year’s inaugural Holiday Guide to Sustainable Living (2008), our theme focused on reducing consumerism. We suggested giving in ways other than buying gifts and gift-giving sources for less fortunate, in lieu of the more traditional, commercialised holiday gift-buying trends. And we focussed on planet and community-friendly gifts, decorations and holiday related items, as well as.
This year, although we still firmly stand behind these themes for the holidays, we are taking a different tack. Since the MAJORITY of people do BUY gifts during the festive season, our Holiday Guide to Sustainable Living ’09 helps you SHOP more SUSTAINABLY.
Typical Guide Format with a Twist
Our guide takes its usual shape. However, focus was placed on creating sustainable gift-buying tools such as our Eco-Local Gift Lists (from A to Z) and our series of Eco-Business Matrices (Sustainable Vendors). As a result, we’ve paired down on our Health section, also because health contributors (especially Chefs) are so busy during the holidays.
Our typical layout is as follows:
- Seasonal Pre-amble to set the mood: “Holiday Spirit”
- Philosophical Proposal to help get you in a sustainable and seasonally appropriate mindset: “The Eco-Shopping Experience”
- Seasonal Theme #1 to make your season ‘greener’ and fulfill your gift-buying needs ‘from A to Z’: “Eco-Local Season”
- Seasonal Theme #2for Sustainable Vendors selling Green, Fair Trade & Organic gifts: “Eco-Business Matrices”
- Seasonal Health to help with natural and nutritional choices for good health: “Holiday Health, Naturally”
- Follow-ups for any themes spilling over from last season: “Seasonal Follow-ups”
- Seasonal Sign-off to wrap it up for the season.
- Seasonal Contributors to give kudos to those who’ve helped make this season’s guide possible.
Sustainable Gift-Buying Tools
Our Holiday ’09 Guide includes many “tools” to make this season and gift buying a little kindler, a little gentler and a little greener, including:
- Eco-Local Season, including Gifts Lists (from A to Z)
- The Eco-Shopping Experience Tips
- Sustainable Gift Vendors &‘Eco-Business’ Matrices
For added resources, be sure to check out our NEW “Eco-Local List” too (FREE) to help you with your holiday shopping. It’s a sophisticated database of businesses, searchable based on ‘sustainable qualities’ of products/services and production process. (See TOP or LEFT menus.)
Also new for the Holidays is our NEW “SustainaBlog” (also Free). It’s launched in conjunction with our new banner page (soon) on Halifax’s newest on-line news source and local voice (VocaLocal), www.haligonia.ca.
Start Spreading the Cheer Now from our Holiday Guide ‘09
Explore topics that suit your fancy by using themes (from ‘left’ side menu bar). Or, see our CRUSISIS Holiday Guide Hot Links (coming soon below) for our favorite suggestions, sure to fill your ‘stocking’ with fun, healthy, local, and sustainable gifts!
NAVIGATION TIP: When surfing the guide, remember that back/ forward arrows at the end of the articles ‘IN’ the guide, take you back/ forward within the theme the article is found… NOT necessarily ‘back’ to the last page you were reading (as would be the case if you clicked ‘back pg’ on your browser). The same is true when you surf the Search Matrix. IF YOU WANT TO GET BACK WHERE YOU WERE, click ‘back page/ arrow” on the browser, not at the end of the article. OR, use the arrows at the bottom of each article to help you move backward/ forward in the section to explore more…
Enjoy the Guide!
Happy & Sustainable Holidays!
CRUSISIS Sustainable Living
HOT Links from Holiday Guide ’09
(Links Coming Soon)
- Eco-Local Gifts List:
- from A to J
- from K to Z
- Locally-made Gifts Vendors (‘Eco-Business’ Matrix)
- Sustainable Stockings
- Fair Trade Gifts Vendors (‘Eco-Business’ Matrix)
- Consumerism Challenge
- Green or Organic Gift Vendors (‘Eco-Business Matrix)
- Healthy Holiday Eating
- Green Christmas by Bridget Oland
- The Eco-Shopping Experience:
- Not All Box ‘Stores’ are Created Equal
- Buy Local 1st
- Coffee Breaks
- Transportation
- Holiday Waste Reduction by Bridget Oland
- CRUSISIS Everyday Environmentalist for the Holidays ‘09
- CRUSISIS Everyday Environmentalist for Shopping