The Clean Up - Green Up Christmas Without Becoming a Grinch

The presents are unwrapped, Christmas dinner has been eaten and now, the clean-up begins!

One perk of having an eco-friendlier Christmas is that, despite what clever marketing would have you believe, the clean-up when using reusables is in fact very easy and won’t leave your wheelie bins overflowing…

Table Decorations If, as suggested in my blog post about setting the table, you’ve decorated with candles, excess decorations and things from the garden your table clean up, will be quick and easy.  All dirty dishes head to the kitchen sink. Candles return to their normal place, excess decorations go back into storage for next year and anything from your garden can be added to the compost or popped into a vase to enjoy for a little longer! The tablecloth and napkins go into the laundry basket.

Leftover Food is pretty much a given at Christmas but instead of throwing it out, jump online and look for some great leftover recipes or create your own special left-over concoction. Use up as many leftovers as you can and enjoy the break from cooking. If using up the leftovers yourself really isn’t an option, send some home with your guests. Make sure anything you really can’t reuse either goes in the compost, the worm farm or is feed to the chickens or dogs (obviously ensuring it is safe for them to eat of course!)

Dirty Dishes. This could be a crazy big job on your own but as the saying goes, many hands make light work, so why not invite your guests to help you with the washing up? There’s no reason the conversations and laughter had around the dining table can’t continue into the kitchen. Enjoy the one-on-one time together with one or two of your guests as you wash and dry (or stack and unstack the dishwasher)… after all isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

Gift Wrap No matter how long you’ve been making better choices, there’s a good chance that you may still end up with some traditional wrapping paper lying around (it happens, not everyone is at the same point on their ‘care about the planet’ journey) Try to salvage as much of the traditional stuff as you can to keep it out of the bin. Flatten it out and along with any gift bags, ribbons and bows pop it away to be reused next year. Any reusable fabric wrap either goes home with the recipients or gets folded up and stored away for next time.

Before you know it, the Christmas clean-up will be done and you can join the kids (big and little) for a game of back yard cricket, a swim or perhaps just settle down for a post lunch nap!