It’s the time for latkes, fried okra, and gingerbread cookies . For stockings, kawadi and dreidels!

So, put a smile on your face, and enjoy the lights of your Christmas Tree, Hanukiah or Kinara!

Happy holidays!

The 5min Team

The truth is, these are all excuses. If you really have the Christmas spirit, there are ways to celebrate it in a greener way. You can make like Madonna and have an organic dinner, you can stay away from the turkey and try some other yummy dishes, and you can get some LED lights and save some energy.

If you still think of yourself as a Scrooge and don’t want to admit that you’re doing a favor to help stop global warming, just think that by doing this you’re also reducing your electricity bill. Or at least tell that to the eager carol singers to keep them away.

I hated our house, my parents, the clouded sky and the darned sheep that seemed to be everywhere you turned – it was like there were following me, conspiring against me. I was as sad and betrayed as every ten-year-old city boy that has been removed from everything he’d ever enjoyed and knew could be. I wish it was like a Disney story, where I discovered a friendly dragon living in a cave, and befriended him, and then we need to hide him from the local police, but they catch him, and me and the girl whom I’m secretly in love with release him to fly to the stars, and even the cold-hearted Police captain, when he sees we believe in magic, suddenly remembers himself as a little boy and orders his men to put down their weapons, and we all look up to the sky and see him disappearing, turning into a star while I shout “Fly burninator! Fly to the stars!”

Alas, that just wasn’t the case. It was a boring place, with boring kids, and I left it the minute I graduated high school, not a moment too soon. But every cloud has a silver lining. Every November 5th, the British celebrate a very educational holiday called Guy Fawkes Night, when they let the kids go off to start fires and play with firecrackers until dawn (while they feast on a fine example of the British cuisine, the groaty pudding). Sure enough, every 5th of November, our bonfire was the biggest in the village.

To make a long story short, one of these years I stole my father’s chainsaw and went to the nearby forest, where my friends and I had the greatest bonfire this village has ever seen since the Black Plague, and felt very good about ourselves. That’s until the cops came to have a little chat with my parents.
Apparently, I chopped down the entire humble Christmas tree plantation that supplied Christmas trees to our village and the surrounding towns. In my defense I can only say I was a city kid, and hey, it looked like a forest to me. It was a sad Christmas in the village, plastic trees in every home. It took me two summers to pay for the damage in work. I learned a lot about how to pick the right tree, and how it is actually more ecological to use a live one than to purchase plastic trees.

So if you too want get yourself a live tree for this Christmas, the Green House is here to the rescue with an excellent video on how to get one.

They peak at a relatively young age and for a while get to be the center of attention, live a life of glitz and glam, loved and adored by everyone watching them. But what happens when the lights go out? As soon as the show ends, we just cast them aside without ever giving them a second thought. They have served their purpose.

Yes, it’s a cold world out there for a Christmas tree come mid-January – where will it turn? What will become of it?!?

Well, just like a middle-aged ballerina, your Xmas tree should consider a second career. It can be recycled: turned into mulch and used in gardening or chipped and used for hiking trails and paths. Christmas trees can also be used for erosion control and provide habitats for fish and birds. Can’t stand the thought of chipping your old tree? Why not replant or donate it? Show your tree that life begins at February!

This pre-Christmas shopping campaign doesn’t just stay in the busy malls, but it’s now all over the cyber space as well: you can find Black Friday deals everywhere, and sites that show you where and when to start shopping. So, you can already start organizing your day: if you want to spend your holidays fixing the house, Home Depot is open since 6:00 AM. If your family finished all your food supplies in last night’s dinner, why not go to Costco at 9:00 AM and get enough things for the following celebrations? And if all these is just giving you a big headache, don’t worry, Walgreens is open from 7:00 am.

Now, if you want to avoid all this drama, but don’t feel like being left out of the Black Friday phenomenon, just shop online!