If you’re scrambling to get your holiday shopping done in these last few days before Christmas, you may want to consider a radical idea: A holiday without presents.  It may sound dismal at first, but consider that it would also be debt-free, stress-free and waste-free.  What would that be like?

You’ll still get the holiday songs, family togetherness, great food, and cheer.  Plus, if you have a new baby she’ll never know the difference and won’t remember either way.

If you’re not willing to give up presents entirely or if you have older kids that would protest the shift, it is nice to at least reduce the gift hullabaloo.  In our extended family we simply draw names for nieces and nephews and skip gifts for adults.  The price limit for children’s gifts is just ten dollars so we have to be thoughtful and work within a small budget.  It has made the holidays so much more relaxing for all of us!

Families who really love gift giving can experiment with homemade presents or perhaps give gifts of experience such as children’s museum memberships or tickets to a children’s concert so that you gather memories instead of stuff.

Does your family have any strategies for limiting the gift giving craziness?  Do you find that it’s tricky to reduce holiday gifts when you have older children?  We’d love to hear how you manage it!

Sure, your parents have changed a diaper, but it’s been a few years. Now they’re going to be grandparents. Perhaps they’re left wondering what, exactly, they will do when the baby cries or how they’ll spend a rainy afternoon with their darlings. In comes The Grandparents Handbook by Elizabeth LaBan.

The handbook includes intriguing-sounding recipes to try with kids (overnight pickles and chocolate-covered pretzels, for example) and activities grandparents can enjoy with young children (why not create a family newspaper or hold a mock election?).The book is packed with ideas, tips, and advice for new or seasoned grandparents. It’s a cute little hardcover book, complete with adorable retro illustrations.

So here are the only two gripes I have about the book: 1. Why is there no apostrophe in the title? As an English teacher, this bothers me. 2. Let’s go back to the diapers. Right in the beginning of the book, the rookie grandparent will find instructions for changing a diaper. LaBan assures her readers that diapers have improved in the last twenty or thirty years—now they’re disposable! But if the parents want to help out the environment “with cloth diapers, safety pins, and endless trips to the washing machine”? Just ask them to switch to disposables while the grandparents come over. “If they protest , tell them you’re out of practice and afraid of accidentally sticking the baby with a safety pin.”

Now, we don’t have to tell our Green Baby Guide readers how misguided this advice is. First of all, almost no cloth diaper enthusiasts use diaper pins anymore—newfangled cloth diapers come with Velcro closures, just like disposables! Also, I didn’t like the idea of the grandparents undermining the parents’ decisions about how to care for the child.

Despite the diaper blunder, it’s a great little book, and I will admit that most people would not get so worked up over the diaper chapter. I plan to give my own copy to my mom (who, by the way, had no problem changing my daughter’s cloth diapers!).  With The Grandparents Handbook, she’ll have a grand time building gingerbread houses, going clover hunting, and making scones for an afternoon tea with Audrey.

We have one copy of the Grandparents Handbook to give away! Just post a comment before next Tuesday (the 22nd) and you’ll be entered to win!

Searching for a somewhat bizarre gift for your eccentric uncle or this year’s white elephant gift exchange?  The following four are somewhat functional but mostly just weird presents for your holiday list.

If someone you know is struggling to sell a house this holiday season, they may need Ecojoe—the Original Eco-Friendly St. Joseph Statue Home Selling Kit.  Who the heck is St. Joseph? He’s the patron saint of real estate.  For years he’s been buried in the yards of those hoping to find an interested buyer.  Does anyone really need an eco-friendly, biodegradable statue of a saint?  Probably not, but it is a fun gag gift that may bring stressed out homeowners a laugh.

The I Am Not a Paper Cup mug is wonderfully deceptive.  Crafted from a ceramic mug and a silicone lid, it looks identical to a paper cup but is far eco-friendlier.

We’re sure you’ve been asking yourself, “How can I spoil my feline friend with eco-friendly products?” The Green Organic Eco Friendly Cat Bundle of Products is a helpful kitty gift basket that includes citrus magic litter box odor eliminator and bath wipes—among other essential cat grooming items!

Our favorite eco-friendly gift is the Elephant Poo Poo Paper Notebox.  Yes, this thick, high quality note paper is made from elephant dung. Recycling the feces of large mammals has never been such fun!

Have you come across any fun eco-friendly products lately?  We’d love to hear about your finds!

The day my daughter was born, it was cold and rainy. We felt trapped indoors for weeks—months!—because of the weather. (Of course, the fact that I was on crutches didn’t help.) If you had a winter baby, what did you do to avoid getting housebound? What are your tips for keeping warm and entertained with a newborn in the house?

The Green Year makes the perfect gift for either the seasoned treehugger or the emerging eco-phile. How is it possible for this book to appeal to readers on both ends of the green spectrum? Well, the tips manage to be simple for the newbies and novel enough for the treehugger’s bag of tricks.

Sure, you’ll find the usual suggestions for switching out light bulbs and turning down the thermostat in the winter. But did you know that filling your gas tank at night is greener than filling it during the day? Or where to donate an old bridesmaid’s dress? Or how to give your shoes an eco-friendly shine? The Green Year not only answers these questions but directs you to helpful websites and lets you know exactly how much energy you can save by following its advice.

The book offers 365 tips: one for each day of the year. Most of them are season-appropriate; for example, around October you’ll find several ways to make Halloween a little greener, and in the summer you’ll hear about air conditioners and sunscreen. This format sets The Green Year apart from other handbooks—but it also makes it difficult to navigate. There’s no table of contents or index, so if you read a great idea about replacing liquid body wash with bars of soap and want to reference it later, you either have to remember what day of the year it’s on (October 28^th) or flip through the entire book hunting it down.

Some of the tips might fall on the wrong day of the calendar depending where you live. March 27^th has us closing curtains to save energy during the winter—but it’s already spring! Author Jodi Helmer has us planning our vegetable gardens on April 28^th, which is when I planted mine this year. So while the tips are excellent, it could prove difficult to use the book as it’s intended.

Overall, The Green Year is a worthwhile read. Every single idea takes very little time or effort, and many of them will save you money in the long run. I’ve already dog-eared my copy in anticipation of all the small changes I plan to make in 2010.

Baby will probably be perfectly happy to receive a wooden spoon as a gift this year, but her parents will be thrilled to have this very useful piece of clothing.

Halo’s wearable blanket (also called a sleepsack) keeps a tossing baby warm all night long without the SIDs risk, and is also incredibly convenient for those 3am diaper changes in the dark. I can unzip this gown, prepare a pre-fold cloth diaper and change my baby all by the faint light of the hallway. The zipper zips up towards the top so there’s no need to get baby’s chubby thighs in and out of pant legs or fumble with snaps in the middle of the night.

Plus, if you’re trying to keep the heat down during the day, you can zip baby into his wearable blanket and know that he’s snug and comfy even if your thermostat is turned down to the mid sixties.

If you are crafty enough to actually make one of these, here are the online instructions. If not, you’ll be happy to know that they’re currently on sale on Amazon. They can’t keep your baby from waking up, but the fact that they help you switch out diapers without too much fuss is worth it!

Do your paper snowflakes come out looking like doilies? Do you wish you had the creativity, skill, and expertise to cut out a proper paper snowflake? Keep reading to learn how a prize-winning* snowflake cutter makes it happen.

1. Fold a square piece of paper in half.

2. Fold it in half again.

3. Fold it in thirds, so it looks like this:

4. Cut the top part off.

5. Cut out pieces to create your snowflake design. Note that there is very little paper left! Cut nice, skinny lines to create a delicate paper snowflake. Cutting out tiny shapes all over will result in a doilyesque snowflake.

The finished product!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

*All right, so I never really won a snowflake prize.

Paper snowflakes make the perfect cheap DIY holiday decorations. They work for me! For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head on over to We are THAT Family.

There is nothing that quite compares to the bliss and brutality of those first few months with a newborn. It is truly shocking to realize that suddenly all your needs (including showers and trips to the bathroom) are secondary to taking care of another tiny life.

If you are currently in the mist of that fourth trimester, you deserve to treat yourself with a gift that can give you some perspective and patience. No matter what your spiritual beliefs, you will find practical wisdom and humble support in the pages of Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood by Karen Maezen Miller.  For the last few weeks I’ve read one chapter of this book every night before bed and I can’t believe how it has helped me be more attentive and appreciative as a parent.

Here’s a brief sample from her chapter entitled “Night Watch”

“Sleep is one of our most intractable attachments.  We claw and clutch and crave it.  We adorn it and worship it.  We four-hundred-thread count it.  It is our one sovereign domain…

Between a mother and a child, sleeplessness unfurls like a torture device. Who will crack?  Who will break?  Blessedly, you will.  You will give up and go forth to the cries.  You will let go of your resistance, your willful inertia.  You will drop the dead weight of your needs so that you can gather up your child to feed, succor and sleep.  You will break with your greedy, sleepy, clandestine self.  Yes, you will do it every time.  This is your new spiritual practice.”

And somehow, when I think of those nighttime feedings as spiritual practice, it helps me crawl out from between the sheets and crack open the nursery door without resentment.

Miller repeatedly reminds us to return to the moment.  The moment when your child is screaming in your ear, the moment that you have to nurse for the fifth time in so many hours, the moment that your baby spits up all over you just as you step out of the shower, the moment she smiles for the first time. We often get caught up in how easy it will be once baby can sit, eat solids, or roll over.  Gently and with humor, she reminds us that each phase will bring its own challenges.  She asks us to sit up, pay attention, and enjoy.

Lest this book sounds too esoteric or judgmental, you should know that she also reminds us to give ourselves a break.  Extremes make us crazy.  If you feel that using a disposable diaper is off limits, maybe you need to relax and change the rules while traveling.  If you feel that your child can eat only whole grain granola, be prepared for your little one to prefer white bread.  Over and over again she reminds us to relax, trust ourselves, and embrace moderation.  What a relief!

Has anyone else had a chance to read Momma Zen? What did you think? Have you come across any great reads for those first arduous months?  What helped you make it through?

What are you hoping you’ll receive for baby this year?  A new batch of cloth diapers, a bit of free babysitting, or an eco-friendly rattle?  Please tell us what you’re wishing for.  (Then you can strategically tell friends and family to read your comments!)

Cute eco-friendly rattle–just $7!

Here’s how you assemble a wonderful gift basket for a new mom. Still need ideas? Here are some more:

A Boppy pillow. Both of us managed to raise our babies with very limited baby gear—and we both had Bobby pillows. They make breastfeeding easier by propping the baby up to the right position, easing the strain on the back and arms. As baby grows older, you can use it to prop him in a sitting position.

Note: You aren’t supposed to let your baby sleep on the Boppy! We kept our eye on her–just a week old!

Kindle. A Kindle—are we kidding? Well, a ways back we wrote this post, posing the question: Is a Kindle greener than regular old books? Sure, it saves trees and shipping fuel, but a wireless reading device uses batteries and may end up clogging a landfill one day. Still, we’d heard that it’s perfect for reading books while breastfeeding–turn the page with the click of a button! Avid readers who like to buy all their books instead of borrowing from the library claim to save money in the long run.

Is a Kindle greener than ordinary books?

Speaking of plain old books . . . We have a few to recommend for new moms. Of course there’s the Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Our own book doesn’t hit the shelves until March of 2010, but it is already available for pre-order! We also recommend HappyBaby by Dr. Robert Sears and Amy Marlow and Raising Baby Green by Dr. Alan Greene.

A nice water bottle. Nursing mothers need to keep hydrated! Sigg water bottles come in several colorful designs, and they aren’t made out of plastic. Once they’ve reached the end of their useful life, they can be recycled. In addition, 1% of the proceeds go to environmental causes.

A breast pump and glass bottles. The expecting mother in your life may have registered for the breast pump of her choice. We like the Medela breast pumps. Please comment on other brands that you love!

If you have bought gifts for a new mother—or if you are a new mother yourself—let us know what your favorite gifts were!