Complete Guide to a Non-Toxic Christmas

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I both love and hate Christmas time. I love Christmas itself and celebrate it with my family. But I have a very hard time with the commercialization of Christmas. There’s just so much junk associated with Christmas now, and that drives me crazy. 

There’s only so much you can do, as if you celebrate Christmas, you usually do so with family, and they’re going to do what works for them and everybody is so different. However, if you find yourself wanting to minimize the junk of Christmas and pare back to the basics as well as focus on reducing toxins around all the junk of Christmas, this is the post for you. 

Today I’m going to explore ways to have an amazing Christmas with less junk, less chemicals, and a lot more peace.

Though these are my suggestions for the ideal world, I’m also a use-what-you-have gal. I buy real trees, but if I had a good quality fake tree, I’d probably continue to use that if I couldn’t find someone to gift it to. I use plastic ornaments and will until they all break. I have some plastic decorations that I will also keep until they break. 

For all of these things, as always, take what works for you and leave the rest.

Buy a real tree

Should you use a fake tree or a real tree? There are pretty decent arguments on both sides and I think it depends on your priorities. Let’s dive into the details. I did not mean for this to become long winded but dang it if there isn’t more to it than meets the eye.

Environmental considerations

One argument for fake Christmas trees is that they’re better for the environment. The argument is largely that you are wasting less trees, which require significant water and food inputs, as well as shipping to get from (specific to the US) their farms typically in the northwest to countless markets around the country. This argument isn’t wrong. It’s a good one. Christmas tree farms do take a lot of water and the market requires a good amount of shipping. 

However, it is good to keep in mind that’s just one side of the equation. Christmas tree farms can actually create great unique habitat for a variety of species due to the cycle of growing and cutting that mimics natural succession tendencies in the wild, and there are potentially more shipping costs to the environment with fake Christmas trees that mostly come from China and are sent all over the world.

Obviously, if you are using your fake Christmas tree for 5-10 years, the shipping thing becomes a non-issue. But it’s worth mentioning anyway. Using a fake Christmas tree is certainly less wasteful, though Christmas trees can also be turned into mulch and other useful products after the fact if you properly dispose of them to composting facilities.

I suppose truly the most sustainable option would be to not do a Christmas tree, but that’s not happening in my house.

Toxicity considerations

There are three main marks against fake Christmas trees that make them a hard no for me. 1) They are typically made of PVC, a toxic and endocrine disrupting chemical, 2) the PVC the trees are made of are typically stabilized by lead, also toxic, and 3) many fake trees have flame retardants all over them.  

You can review our recent posts on endocrine disrupting chemicals and common exposures to EDCs to learn more about the issues around this, but these are chemicals I strongly choose to avoid and do not want in my home. 

Especially considering I have small children, and children love to play with Christmas trees, it’s just not something I’m willing to mess with. These chemicals are more proven to be harmful to health than a lot of other proposed EDCs, so it’s a no for me. 

Additionally, the trees with the fake snow shed these chemicals into the air and onto your skin when you touch them, which means you’re inhaling way more of the chemicals through the dust in your house due to them. Again, just not something I’m down for. 

Plus, I just love a good real tree. Combine these two things, I will buy a real Christmas tree until the day I die.

One caveat I will add is that real tree farms typically do use chemicals like Atrazine, which we’ve discussed before is not good. However, we are not eating Christmas trees, so it’s less of an issue to me. I don’t like supporting the use of these chemicals through supporting the industry, but smaller local farms are less likely to use them so that’s one option. All in all it may be difficult to avoid though.

Why I choose to buy real Christmas trees every year

I find the potential environmental risks of real Christmas trees to be much less of a concern than the toxicity of fake Christmas trees. First of all, Christmas trees come from dedicated farms, not deforestation, and though they do certainly take high inputs and shipping costs, I’m a fan of the positive environmental impacts for wildlife that aren’t often discussed. This is just one of those areas where I choose to be okay with the environmental costs. 

The best option for sourcing Christmas trees is to find a local farm, which will obviously massively reduce national shipping costs related to the Christmas tree market. If I can find local Christmas trees in Texas, you can probably find them where you live. 

Additionally, we have the ability now to mulch our tree and spread it on our land (hello added acidity for a blueberry patch), which means we aren’t really wasting a tree. So the fact that we fully utilize the tree for enjoyment and then practical purposes and are avoiding all the toxic chemicals in fake Christmas trees is a win-win for us.

Stick with wooden or other natural material decorations (and handmade ones!)

We’ve discussed why plastic can be incredibly harmful and why I choose to reduce my use of plastic. I’m not as crazy about this for non food related items, and items that aren’t touched as much, like Christmas ornaments. If I was buying new, I’d probably opt for wool felt balls over plastic ones (bonus points for being shatter proof, hello small children), but I already own plastic ornaments, so I will probably use them until they break or I just have the budget to get new ones and donate the ones I have.

I also just love the look of decorations made from natural materials. This is probably totally a personal thing, but they somehow just feel more relaxing to me. 

One specific decoration I would avoid would be the super plasticky, tinsel garlands, which are made of PVC and, as we discussed with fake Christmas trees, are pretty toxic and prone to contain lead. I grew up with a tinsel garland and still put one on his tree every year, but it’s not ideal. (Hey, I may have just found a Christmas idea for him)

Christmas lights are a big one that people talk about being pretty toxic due to flame retardants and potential lead exposure, but it’s just not something I’ve had the energy to swap out of think much about. If buying new, consider doing some research to find safer options. Also consider using gloves (not gloves you’ll then turn around and use elsewhere) to handle Christmas lights and wash your hands afterward.

Overall, this isn’t something I’d split hairs over, I’d just make better choices when purchasing new items and focus on natural materials with minimal chemical processing. And maybe wash your tree after decorating it and try to keep your kids from eating it.

Make more, buy less

This can apply to many things, but my favorite is decorations. One easy way to avoid a bunch of toxic, plasticky decorations is to try to make things where you can. 

For instance, you can use safe foam clay to make hand print based ornaments with your kids. You can make an orange garland. You can use non-toxic paper to make decorations. These are all great things to do with kids that get them involved as well. I am not the most crafty person because I don’t have the time for it, but I’m sure there are many posts out there with great ideas of ways you can start to make various Christmas items.

Additionally, if you’re stumped on gifts for grandparents, handmade is always a great option. It can feel kind of cheap, but they honestly probably value a handmade decoration from their grandchildren over a random gift anyway. Obviously, if you know something they really want, that’s always great, but having your kids get involved with making something for grandparents can be a great option.

Focus on higher quality, and potentially more expensive, presents over a bunch of random little things

This doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with toxicity, though focusing on presents that aren’t made of plastic can certainly fall into the higher quality, potentially more expensive category. And one major reason I do say avoiding random little gifts is good is because a lot of those little random filler gifts are made of junk, full of junk, and may never get used by the individual anyway. This isn’t always the case, obviously, use your judgment. 

But like for kids. I would much rather my family get my son a book, a pair of high quality cotton pajamas, a good pair of barefoot shoes in the next size he needs, or a pass to the zoo rather than a bunch of random toys. And if kids are old enough to straight up tell you what they want, that’s a great opportunity to pick one quality item they’ve really been wanting and go for it, rather than guessing with a lot of random stuff they’ll forget in a couple weeks. 

(Obviously this particular section is highly opinionated, but there it is.)

One thing my family has done before is to group-gift. So instead of everybody getting everybody a gift, we pitched in to get everybody one bigger gift. It was great. Some people still got multiple people a gift, and that was their prerogative, but there was no pressure to do that, so it served everybody’s needs and led to some cool gifts.

Obviously, you have to do what you can afford. I mean there have been years where we didn’t really get anybody anything because we didn’t have the money, which sucks. But you do what you have to do. Unless you have a sad family, they should be understanding…

If you can afford to get everybody one really awesome, higher quality gift, that’s awesome and I love that for you. 

Consider gifting experiences rather than things

People talk about this all the time and I’m sure you get the point. Not everybody loves this, but lots of people do. Especially for kids, most parents don’t want a bunch of new toys or whatever because they have so much already and it adds up over time. 

Gifting experiences can be a great solution for this. A pass to the zoo, a concert, a class, a trip. There’s so many options. Yes, you definitely run the risk of gifting something that never gets used. My husband and I have definitely gifted experiences that I know my family members never used (though they probably honestly still could). However, that’s on them. It’s their right to use their gift or not, just like a physical present. 

This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s risen in popularity lately. For good reason, it can be really appreciated.

Fill your home with natural holiday scents

I have a whole post dedicated to making your home smell good naturally, so check that out for great ideas for how to make your home smell like Christmas without toxic plug-ins, sprays, and candles (also check out my post about candles if you want to feel a little better about choosing to burn holiday candles anyway). 

My favorite ways to make my home smell like Christmas naturally are baking, simmer pots, and diffusing essential oil combinations that include spice and woody scents. I do, admittedly, also love burning a low toxicity, non-paraffin wax holiday candle. And sometimes totally normal candles too, let’s be honest.

Wrap-up

So there you have it. My top tips for having a less toxic, higher quality Christmas. Obviously, this post is way more opinion than my typical brand of post, but I hope you found it helpful nonetheless. 

Except the Christmas tree part, that’s science, my friends. I hope y’all have a great holiday season and make lots of great memories whatever your situation. 

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