How we're having a merry green Christmas

2:54pm Monday 17th December 2007

Deck the halls with boughs of holly - picked from your own back garden, please.

Sarah Lewis talks to the green and the good of Sussex and discovers that with a little bit of imagination, a green Christmas does not have to be a lean one

JASMINE FISH Eco-designer, Hove
"I am making my Christmas presents, as usual, and I am making them out of rubbish, also as usual. Last year, I gave all the women in my life jewellery made out of plastic milk bottles, tin cans, plastic bags - all sorts.

"When people get their rubbish presents from me they don't say, Oh that's rubbish', they are generally very grateful and think how clever it is. They appreciate I have spent the time and effort to make them something unique.

"This year I'm making things out of similar materials but not so much jewellery, more mobiles and hangy things for the home.

I'm also doing papier-mache, using scrap paper and ribbons from old chocolate boxes.

"I get all the stuff from my waste bin or if I don't have enough of my own I pilfer it from work or friends.

"I try to recycle everything, compost and send things to charity. Everything else I turn into something else. I make lip balm and put it in all my old glass jars and give it to people.

"If you do have the time, patience and creativity you might as well use it. Christmas is just a fantastic excuse for me to do more, especially Christmas cards. I love making them out of complete rubbish."

Top tip: Lip balm recipe to make up to give people - 1 teaspoon beeswax, 2 teaspoons veggie oil such as sweet almond, 4 drops of any essential oil. Melt it in a stove and put in a little glass pot.

ADRIENNE CAMPBELL Full-time volunteer, Transition Town Lewes, Lewes
"My husband and I have three teenage daughters and a son of ten. We collect a lot of greenery from the woods and make our own decorations. We have a lot of candles and the kids make an advent calendar. It's just part of what has built into our family culture over the years.

"We also have a culture of buying secondhand and local things that are beautiful and useful.

On the whole we don't buy crap from China, partly because I keep banging on about not wanting to support slave wages and partly because we want to support the local economy.

"We always have a discussion about iPods and mobile phones. This year I will probably buy a wind-up iPod for one of the kids and I will give one of them some money and she will end up buying clothes in Primark - but that is OK. We are not totally disconnected. I don't think having a low-impact life should feel bad and I don't think children should feel deprived by their parent's purist ideals - that is selfdefeating in the end.

"When the children were younger I had wobbles about whether I was making them different from their peers but the older two are really proud to have those values as young adults. We should remember these are good values to have."

Top tip: The really important thing for a parent is to have strong values but if a child starts developing other values it is just as important not to allow conflict to develop around that.

HENRY BUTLER Independent wine merchant
"We will be having local game from the independent butcher round the corner from us.

Wine-wise we'll have some English fizz and English beer.

We will definitely be eating and drinking properly.

"We aren't going anywhere, we have friends coming to us and in the morning friend Andy Martin and I will be training for our tandem charity bike ride.

We're going to be taking English wine through France on the bike, making the French drink it on the way and then delivering it to the headquarters of the Slow Food Movement. We'll do the ride in April for the Chestnut Tree House, a local children's hospice.

"The Slow Food Movement was set up to help protect and fund smaller producers of food and drink around the world. It's sort of the antithesis to McDonalds. It's about growing and producing food in a clean way, making it affordable to everyone and encouraging people to take time out and make meal times a good social event. It also gives help and funding to emerging nations in terms of agriculture so they can run businesses themselves.

"So Christmas at ours: we'll all do a bit of cooking, we have a port from my birth year, 1970, some great old wine, and all in all it will be a very leisurely affair."

Top tip: A lot of producers in Alsace and Germany are now making biodynamic white wines. They don't travel too far. They are dry but go really well with food.

DR DAVID HILL Lecturer in ecology and conservation, University of Sussex
"It will be just the two of us this Christmas, it's the one time of year we really relax and unwind. We have a real tree, locally grown, and the wood will eventually be burnt on the fire. We decorate rooms with holly, ivy and mistletoe from our garden (as well as some ancient tinsel, which obviously isn't!) and hang the cards we receive on strings. These will be recycled after Christmas. My wife has now learned how to weave willow wreaths, so we can add those to our permanent collection.

"Books and CDs make up a high proportion of the presents and we use lists to cut down on unwanted gifts, though we do buy a few silly things each year. We try to be careful but are not aiming for green sainthood.

"I don't think our friends or relatives think our values are mad. It took a few years before they realised we really were happy to just be quietly on our own. Now I think they quite envy our simpler style of Christmas.

"We have reduced our turkey miles to about one by ordering from a farmer in the next village. The potatoes and parsnips will be from our garden and most other vegetables will be from a local Farmers' Market.

But there are always Christmas essentials, such as satsumas, you just have to have.

"I'll be drinking bottled Sussex beer brewed by Hepworth's in Horsham and bought in Pulborough, five miles away."

Top tip: Try to buy locally produced food and drink as far as possible, go for winter walks and enjoy lots of long, cosy lie-ins to save energy.

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