How to Give Great Gifts for Christmas, Birthdays, Anniversaries or for Any Occasion (Part 1)

Giving thoughtful, practical gifts that will be used and appreciated and are ecologically sound can be a bit of a challenge. Grab a pen and some paper and start by making a list of questions that can be applied to each of your gift recipients.

Give Gifts that are Thoughtful and Green Too.  Ask questions such as; What is Mary passionate about? What does Joe like to do in his spare time? What has Paul always wanted to do or learn about? What does Terry talk about frequently? Think about each person thoughtfully and determine what they enjoy most.

Once the memberships has arrived use recycled wrapping paper to wrap it. For the nature lover in your family, a gift membership to their local botanical gardens or arboretum would make a wonderful gift. These memberships typically include free yearly entrance for the recipient and/or their spouse and family depending on the package you purchase, includes free parking and an average of a 10% discount to their gifts shops and eateries. Botanical gardens memberships are generally cross memberships. What this means is that if you have a membership to the botanical gardens the same membership card will give you free access to your local arboretum as well as botanical gardens and arboretums across the United States. Ask about this feature as not all states may support this feature. A membership to the arboretum or botanical gardens helps to support and sustain nature.      You can add a gently used book about indigenous birds for the state in which your gift recipient lives. You can find gently used books at Amazon.com. Reusing old books is a good way to help reduce paper production, which helps to save our trees. Place the book and membership information together and wrap them in brown recycled paper or use brown paper grocery bags to wrap your gift. Find photos of nature in old magazine, cut them out and use a glue stick to place the pictures on the wrapping. Or you can scan in some photos from the bird or nature book you purchased and place them on the wrapping paper. Use twine to tie a bow for the gift. For more information and ideas about going green for the holidays, see further installments of this article.