Christmas Special Green Tip #57: The True Meaning of the Holidays

Merry Christmas week everyone! I hope you enjoy this week's special 4 part series about environmentally friendly Christmas ideas. I figured that I would start the week off with a look into the real meaning behind the traditions associated with the season.

Far too often, we get caught up in the commercialized, stressful, meaningless practices and forget that there is a very important lesson to be learned. As we gather together with our friends and families, let us not worry about who bought presents for whom or whether the ham is cooked right or that if you see that stupid beer commercial with the guy who puts lights in his palm tree one more year in a row you'll go crazy and throw the Christmas tree through the window. No, let us instead remember that the true meaning of Christmas is fighting Global Warming.

"Wait. What?" you're probably asking. Well, probably not. After 56 Green Tips, you've probably figured out where I was going with this one before you even started writing this one. But you probably are asking "Wait. How?" Well, once I explain it to you, you'll see just how obvious all of the symbolism really is.

Let's start with Santa. Santa is the model of Green Living. Everything he does is just so environmentally friendly. He employs elves to do his work instead of automating the process which saves electricity. He uses magical reindeer instead of taking an airplane to save on fuel consumption. He very clearly endorses the use of fireplaces to heat your home which saves on natural gas or coal use.

But most importantly of all, he makes a bold statement working out of the North Pole. Al Gore recently said that the polar ice caps could completely melt within ten years because of Global Warming. Well Santa just won't stand for it. His refusal to move to a warmer climate is a bold challenge to the world. "If you pollute, you clearly hate Christmas," is what he's saying. Think about that next time you forget to recycle your plastic bottles. You might as well just punch the Easter Bunny in the nose next time you leave your A/C on too high.

In related ideas, Hanukkah. I don't want my Jewish friends to feel left out of the picture. This holiday is just as important at spreading the message of being green. For those of you that don't know, Hanukkah is celebrated to remember the time when the Jerusalem temple was running low on holy candle oil to praise God with. They only had one day's worth of oil left and they didn't want the candles to go out. But that one day's worth of oil ended up lasting them for eight days, which was a long enough time for them to make more oil.

This clearly has a Green message to it. Candle oil that uses 1/8th the amount of energy? That sounds familiar. It sounds like the ancient Jews were the first ones to design the CFL (the energy efficient spiral lightbulbs). If I were the high priest in charge of the Jewish temple, I'd look into getting that place LEED certified (look it up) because I think they've got a shot at going for platinum.

So you can see that there are environmental messages behind every tradition that we hold dear to us during this season. Don't forget to come back tomorrow, but until then, keep dreaming of a Green Christmas!