NEWS: Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house...

...people were panicking with the realisation that they still had gifts to buy but did not want to buy any old unethical crap made of chemical-leaking plastic that had flown millions of miles adding lots of CO2 to our precious atmosphere before being thrown away after less than 12 seconds of someone's attention and spending the rest of it's decomposing days wasting space in landfill.

Aaaaand relax...

For those of you who need last minute green gift salvation help is at hand.

Here are my top last minute ideas for some instant great green gifts that you can give without needing to wrap a present.

Plus at the end I have put together a collection of green gift guides for those who need, sorry, like, to buy and give late and even as a reference for next year.

And as a post-script I give notice that City Hippy has a Christmas message for you all tomorrow.

Enjoy.

GREEN SUBSCRIPTIONS
It is nice and easy to give the gift of a magazine subscription. I love doing this. Part gift and part ideological warfare. Nice. Here are some I would be happy to give and receive:

National Geographic
Ode
The Ecologist
Spirit & Destiny
Plenty
Organic Life
Resurgence
E-magazine
New Consumer
Sublime
The Green Guide
Permaculture
Utne Reader
Green Parent
Ethical Consumer

GOOD GREEN GIFTS
2006 will be City Hippy's Year of the Green Gift as far as I am concerned. I will promise here and now to buy Oxfam Unwrapped gifts for ALL 2006 gifts, regardless of what and who they are for. This will cause serious waves I am sure. Just has to be done though.

Oxfam Unwrapped allows you to buy goats, train farmers and give kids school meals. Not much use in the middle of London or New York I grant you but this sort of assistance to the global poor ensure that they can stand just a little bit taller on their own two feet and that means that one more corner of our planet is just a little bit brighter and ever so slightly more self-sufficient.

GOOD GREEN GIFT GUIDES
For those of you with serious last minute physical gift needs here is our collection of green gift guides to help you choose. All these sites have done the hard work for you and each one has lots of ways for you to give green. The gifts will arrive late for sure but they will be green for sure.

Treehugger, North Carolina Conservation Network, Joel Makower, Buy Blue, National Resources Defence Council, Grist (my favourite), Co-op America, Planet Friendly.

Namaste & Ho Ho Ho

CH

p.s. In the UK we have a traditional Christmas message from our dearly beloved Queen (ahem) and we also get a different celebrity offering up an alternative Christmas message. In the past this alternative christmas speech has been given by Rev Jesse Jackson, Brigitte Bardot, Marge Simpson, Ali G and even Sharon Osbourne.

This year it is apparently the turn of Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef who has championed the quality of lunches we feed our kids in schools in the superb series 'School Dinners'. Should be fun and full of green, local, fresh food messages.

But City Hippy has a speech to give and by jove he will give it. Watch out for my very own alternative Christmas message tomorrow. Part-rant, part-wishlist, part-drunken-and-turkey-coma-induced but 100% grade A City Hippy.

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