Send Evites:

Paper invitations are so 2007. Send email invitations, or evites, for your New Year’s Eve celebration. Check out www.evite.com for free evites as well as party planning ideas and themes.

Green Decorations: Get creative with your party décor. Repurpose items you already own to jazz up your party in lieu of single-use paper or plastic party decorations. Pull out a fancy bowl and fill it with greenery from your yard, fruits, or leftover bows and ribbons from your holiday celebrations; drape a scarf over your book case or end table; or enlist your kids help in making handmade crafts to decorate your event.

Eco Eats: Challenge yourself and your guests to bring local and/or organic foods and dishes to your party.

Don’t Trash The Planet: Ring in the New Year with a minimal amount of waste with reusable dishes, napkins, and silverware. If you need more dishes than you own, try renting dishes or using biodegradable products that you can throw in your compost pile after the party. (Try www.plumparty.com for biodegradable plates, cups, and even straws).

Get Toasted: Check your local yellow pages under party rentals or party supplies to rent champagne flutes for your celebration so that you and your guests can toast the New Year with eco-savvy style.

I recently heard from one of my subscribers who was thrilled with the info she found in The Green Parent

but felt overwhelmed with guilt because she simply could not do all of the things she thought she should be doing to help protect the planet. So I thought it was high time for a few Green Parent “eco-confessions.” Here goes:

1. We live 3 blocks away from a perfectly fine public school. However, I drive my daughter 35 minutes (each way) to a private school in another town because I feel it is a better fit for her.

2. I eat meat and lots of it. I used to be a vegetarian (no meat, poultry, or fish) for twelve years and although I would like to someday get back to a veggie diet, I currently eat any and all kinds of meat. In fact, about the same time that I wrote Hold The Beef! I was literally filling my freezer with a large shipment of beef that my husband and I had ordered. Granted, the cow was raised as organically as possible on a small farm, and I do try to limit the amount of beef I consume each week, but the fact remains that I am not even close to vegetarian.

3. I use disposable diapers. My eldest child was raised almost exclusively on cotton diapers. However, when my second child came along, I became a little more lax. I now use a pretty even mixture of cotton diapers, disposables, and gdiapers.

4. I do not collect my kitchen scraps for the compost pile, despite my almost daily pledge to do so. I’m working on it…who knows, maybe today will be the day that I finally organize a system to do it!

And these are just my “eco-confessions” for today! Got an eco-confession you’d like to share? Post it here. And please, please, please remember that nobody is perfect….every little bit you do each day makes a HUGE difference…so don’t even worry about doing it all. Find the little eco-friendly things that work for you and your family and make them a part of your daily routine. And like everything else you do as a parent…if you flub up, just make sure your kids aren’t watching!

Pumpkins: Pumpkins are 100% compostable, so chop ‘em up and toss them in the pile or bury them in the backyard. Don’t have a compost pile? Click here to learn how to start one. In some areas, you may be able to throw your pumpkins in with other compostable yard waste for the city or county to pick up.

Costumes: Just because Halloween is over doesn’t mean that your child has to give up his favorite costume. Put it in the dress-up box for playtime around the house. If you do want to get rid of it, pass it on to your local thrift shop or sell it on eBay.

Candy: If you’ve hit your limit on Halloween candy, pare down your supply and donate the rest to a local nursing home, Boys and Girls club, or women’s shelter.

Photo courtesy of Thad Zajdowicz

Here’s how to Green Your Halloween and have a Jack-O-Lantern full of eco-friendly fun with pumpkins.

1. Go Local: Buy your pumpkins (as well as apples and other seasonal produce) from your local pumpkin farm or farmer’s market to save energy and resources that would otherwise be used for shipping, packaging, and transportation.
2. Use It All: If you carve your pumpkin, be sure to save the seeds. Pumpkin seeds can be baked and served as a special treat at home or at your next Halloween gathering. You can also feed them (dry or wet) to the birds and squirrels in your yard. Some zoos even accept pumpkin seed donations for their animals.
3. Compost: When the holiday has past and your pumpkin begins to look a little wilted, be sure to give him a proper “burial” in your compost pile.