Like many of you, I am dreading looking forward to the upcoming holidays. Who doesn’t like the chance to get together with people we’d never associate with if we weren’t related by blood? Actually, Mr. Dingo and I play our holidays pretty low key. We simply stay home and avoid the madness. Thanksgiving? We’re thankful 365 days of the year. We don’t need no stinkin’ holiday! Christmas? We want peace and love every day of the year. We don’t need no stinkin’ holiday! New Year’s Eve? We get drunk, dress like idiots, and are too loud every day of the year. We don’t need no stinkin’ holiday!  And best of all?  Sanctimony and self-righteousness has no carbon footprint and keep you warm during the long, cold winter months. So, turn off that heater and turn up the judgmental snark. That rosy glow you feel? That’s environmentalism at work, folks: you’ve just saved 35 acres of rain forest by staying home, turning down the heat, and basking in the warm, cackling glow of your inner judge and jury.

Now, if you want to go green this season and still be gracious, be mindful of many ways you can reuse, recycle, and reduce. It won’t be as fun, but you’ll still have friends when state-of-the-art animatronics, a touch of CG, and just a tiny pinch of magic enable Dick Clark to ring in another New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

According to the Use Less Stuff report, there’s a 25% increase in waste per week between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Per week! That’s an extra 6 million TONS of garbage. And I don’t think they’re talking  only about the miles of film wasted making Christmas with the Kranks and A Very Brady Christmas. They’re talking food waste, discarded packaging, and tons of ugly, overpriced wrapping paper you were forced to buy to support some kid’s school fundraiser. I mean, really? Fifteen bucks for two feet of obnoxious wrapping paper? Dude. We’re in a recession! And at least a little bit of the recovery must require good taste! I’m going to wrap my gifts in my 401(k) statement with my losses circled in big red ink. I’ll get points for being environmentally friendly and all my friends will feel too bad for me to say anything other than, “This is just what I wanted!” as they unwrap the homemade yoga DVD I made right after the vicodin for my root canal kicked in.

There are green ideas for gift-wrap, like recycled wrapping paper that uses soy-based inks and re-usable gift bags, but it may be easier (and cheaper!) to re-purpose something that you already have. Maps from your family’s 1974 cross-country road trip, the Sunday comics, and paper bags are just a few suggestions that make it easy to personalize your gift giving and reduce waste. Topped with a colorful gift bow crafted from a magazine page, your gift will stand out as thoughtful for both the receiver and the environment — unless you went through all that effort just to wrap something stupid like The Potty Putter. But you wouldn’t do that, would you? Because you’re classy, right? RIGHT?!

So, whether you’re wrapping a hostess gift, hosting a gift exchange, or still looking for my belated birthday gift (it was last month, but there’s a 30-day grace period), you will feel a warm, rosy glow when you reuse something you already have around the house. Six million tons of waste? I think I’ve just added a new weight loss plan to my list of resolutions.