Both raised in the Christian tradition, and living in a society where Christmas is nearly unavoidable, my husband and I choose to join in the celebration of Jesus’ birth though to us it is more the birth of a wonderful man and peace worker than of a deity.  We will also recognize and celebrate the winter solstice as I feel most spiritually connected with rituals tied to the cycles of nature.  There is a secular elf of Indian descent who wreaks havoc around our house every night.  And though my husband’s Buddha figures don’t garner any special attention at this time of year, they remain present in their constant places of honor.

In the midst of all of that, there is one more very important holiday display to be laid out:  Chalica.

Chalica is a little known and comparatively new winter holiday that celebrates service, compassion, and respcect, but in the middle of a season already bursting at the seams with celebrations, why would anyone consider adding another holiday to the mix?

For our family, it’s because Chalica is a perfect complement to all the wonderful parts of the Yultide while also serving as an ideal counterpoint to the negative that so often accompanies this time of year (materialism, segregation of beliefs, etc.).   Chalica also offers a simplicity and flexibility enabling it to meld seamlessly into other festivities.  Seven days, seven candles, and seven principles, and from there it becomes whatever you need it to be.

Each day of Chalica calls us to light a candle and focus on a different concept, encouraging participants to think about and discuss that aspect of their lives while taking actions, small or large, to further the principle in question.

Drawn from the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism, Chalica is a celebration open to and appropriate for all faith paths.  The days and corresponding principles are as follows:

• Monday – The inherent worth and dignity of every person (or being).  Child version: Everyone is important.
• Tuesday – Justice, equality, and compassion in human relations. Child version: Be kind in all you do.
• Wednesday – Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual (or personal) growth.  Child version: Our freedom to learn together.
• Thursday – Free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Child version: We’re always searching for the truth.
• Friday – The right of conscience and use of the democratic process.  Child version:   All people need a need a voice.
• Saturday – The goal of a worldwide community of peace, liberty, and justice for all.  Child version:  Building a fair and peaceful world.
• Sunday – Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part.  Child version:  All beings share the Earth.

A traditional Chalica candle display or alter features a central Chalice and seven additional candles arranged around it.  On each night of Chalica, one of the seven candles (each representing one of the seven principles) is lit from the center chalice so that on the seventh night all eight candles are lit.

There is no single mandated standard for how the chalice or Chalica display must look.  Last year, ours was made up entirely of used candles that no longer had places in our home.  The Chalice was a big globe shaped Yule candle and the rest of the candles were tea lights and stumps.  It wasn’t the prettiest display, but that didn’t matter.  Pretty isn’t the point of Chalica – and in using old candles that might otherwise get thrown away, we were honoring the seventh principle!

Common methods for creating chalices (a fun holiday craft and great way to introduce the holiday to your family!) include decorating a champagne coupe (a wide, shallow, stemware glass) or decorating a flower pot and saucer then turning the pot upside down and gluing the saucer on top to create a chalice.  A display can consist of one chalice and seven smaller chalices, eight chalices all the same size arranged so the central chalice is offset from the others, or one chalice and seven separate candles.  Or anything else you like!  You can also purchase chalices from several sites like Flaming Chalice and UniUniques.

A Chalica celebration starts with the lighting of the candle.  This can be at any time of day that works best for you.  We prefer either lighting the candle in the morning or the night before the assigned day.  This is because the candle lighting is the time to discuss the principle of the day, its meaning, and what we will do to honor that principle on the day in question.  It is also a time to discuss how the actions of the previous day went and how we honored that principle.

On Sunday night, the night before the first day of Chalica, we will light the chalice and the first candle and discuss the inherent worth and dignity of every being.  We will talk about what exactly that phrase means and brainstorm ways we might honor that principle.  We might come up with special ways to show our loved ones how much they mean to us or seek out the positive characteristics in people (or animals) who we don’t like very much.  This is a great day for writing holiday cards (but be sure they’re sustainably sourced)!

Traditionally, Chalica starts on the first Monday in December, but for the second year in a row, our family will be celebrating Chalica starting on the second Monday in December because Mommy (that would be me) tends to forget to write Chalica on the calendar – especially when it overlaps with Daddy’s birthday…

For seven days we will continue discussing the principles and finding ways to use those principles to make the world a better place.  We even try to find ways to fit dinner to the theme every night.  The seventh night is easy, a vegan meal from local sources and a discussion of Ethical Eating and food justice.  Other nights can be more challenging.  On Friday, we might vote on what the meal will be.  On Thursday maybe we’ll discuss the meaning of religious meals in various faiths.  The only limit on Chalica is your own creativity (or that of Google…).

Chalica is not about gifts or decorations and can be celebrated across religious lines.  It does not compete with or exclude other holidays taking place at this time, and only asks that we take time to focus on how we can make a difference.  We even put Chalica activities in our Advent Calendar.

We are a young UU family, and we are building our holiday traditions and finding our individual faith paths as we go.  For us, Chalica is a perfect way to live our beliefs.  It is anything but “just another winter holiday.”

If you’re interested in learning more about Chalica, or finding ideas for how to celebrate it in your home, check out these resources:

An excellent Chalica Activity booklet geared toward children was created by Meredith Plummer, Director of Religious Education at the First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, OH.

Chalica Facebook Page

Chalica: Parenting Beyond Belief

Navigating the Winter Holidays

The Chalica Song!

Chalica on Pinterest

The post Chalica appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

According to Stanford University:

“Americans throw away 25% more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year’s holiday period than any other time of year. The extra waste amounts to 25 million tons of garbage, or about 1 million extra tons per week!

If every family reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet. If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. The 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill a football field 10 stories high. If we each sent one card less, we’d save 50,000 cubic yards of paper.”

The pointlessness of such waste is nearly incomprehensible.  There are so many wonderful, creative, and beautiful alternatives to wrapping paper and holiday cards, and so many ways to recycle, reuse, and repurpose those that are already in production.  Save some trees (not to mention reducing some of the other pollution caused by the production and dying of mass produced holiday paper products), and save some money with these beautiful, fun, and more sustainable holiday card and gift wrap alternatives:

GIVING:
Green Holiday Card Alternatives

1.  Make your own from recycled materials – There are tons of tutorials out there on using newspaper and other forms of waste paper as gift wrap (see below), but precious few on how to use waste paper to make gift cards, which surprises me.  Look for a tutorial on just that right here on Urban Earthworm very, very soon.

On of my all-time very favorite ways to make my own cards/paper/greetings, is by making home-made seed paper.  This is way easier than it sounds, recycled waste paper, and results in a greeting that can be planted instead of thrown away!  There are many ways to make seed paper, most just involving paper, water, a blender, seeds (the seeds do NOT go in the blender), and a drying method.  Check here for one example.  Once you’ve made your seed paper, use it to write a nice holiday note, print a holiday newsletter on it, or make it into a card by attaching a holiday image cut from an old magazine to it.  Voila!  My hands-down favorite idea.

2.  Purchase cards made of recycled materials – in very much the same vein as discussed in the Gift Giving Guide, if you decide you want to purchase cards to send, there are easy ways to ensure the cards you buy have the smallest negative footprint and the money you spend goes somewhere worthwhile.

Look for cards made from 100% recycled materials – 100% post-consumer recycled is best.

Look for cards whose proceeds benefit a charity.  Last year, we gave cards that benefitted Amnesty International and were printed on recycled paper. (This year my goal is to make the cards).

If you like the custom printed cards like those with family pictures on them, keep in mind that there are many companies out there from which you can get such cards printed on recycled paper with vegetable based ink, such as Greenfield Paper, BuyGreen,  GreenerPrinter, Conserveatree, and My Good Greetings.  That’s just a beginning list of the possibilities.  I haven’t done a lot of research on these, and I can’t endorse any one in particular, but they are all better than just ordering from environmentally irresponsible card printing companies.  Some of those listed even have seed paper cards!

3.  Go Paperless! – I admit that I love getting cards in the mail, even if I do worry about the waste.  Getting mail is fun and personal, which is why many people (including me) shy away from digital holiday greetings, but there are actually a number of ways to send holiday cards online that ARE personal, fun, and unique in addition to being the best choice for sustainability.

Want to send a family newsletter or photo card?  Make one exactly as you would for mass mailing, but email it instead, and attach a personal message to each individual email.

Use your card addressing time to write personal messages to people you would otherwise send impersonal cards to.

Go through the 1,000’s of digital photos we all hoard on our computers these days, and send pictures targeted at the recipients (for instance when you send your holiday greeting to your cousin, include pictures of her at your wedding or from your summer visit to her house).  If you know anyone who has suffered a loss, find pictures of their lost loved one that they may not have.

A popular new trend involves making YouTube or other internet video holiday greetings – there is a LOT of fun potential with that.

This year, I will probably only send paper invitations to a few people, mostly those who don’t use the computer regularly.

Please send me your creative digital card ideas (or any ideas that would fit in this post) and I’ll include them in the list!

Green Wrapping Paper Alternatives

This sections possibly could have been it’s own post.  There are thousands of ideas out there for alternatives to wrapping paper.  I’ve been on board with it for a while, though not with much skill.  I wrapped most of Flintstone’s birthday presents in sheets and pillowcases, but I can’t say it was pretty.  The ideas below, though, they are very pretty, mostly easy (because that’s how I roll), and would make excellent family crafts – a great way to teach the kids about sustainability and not wasting!  And, inspired by the absolute plethora of ideas out there for not only wrapping paper alternatives, but also for reusing wrapping paper, cards, etc., I’ve started a Pinterest board specifically to link to the ideas I couldn’t fit in this post, but which seemed like great ideas.  Check it out.

1. Old Paper – the classic and beloved method of wrapping gifts in old paper is getting new life.  First, I think black and white newsprint with a red bow is just beautiful.  Second, there is so much more potential and creativity that goes into this kind of wrapping these days, the possibilities are nearly endless.  This bodes well for me, because I have a MOUNTAIN of old magazines just waiting to find some second purpose.  Here are some ideas:

http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2009/10/make-gift-bow-from-magazine-page.html

And it doesn’t stop at wrapping:

Most of these ideas feature old newspaper and magazines, but just look around you, there is waste paper everywhere just waiting to be re-purposed.  My huge desk calendar is destined to be covered in my children’s art (on the blank backs), and used as giftwrap.  Old calendars and phone books.  Out of date maps make particularly adorable wrapping.  You can even customize it.  Old dictionary pages for the grammar nerd.  Comics for your resident class clown.  Discarded architecture plans for the engineer in your life.  The potential for creativity is wide open!  Even old plastic bags (from the days before you got your environmentally friendly canvas bags)  have potential:

2.  Wrap it in something useful – I wrapped MacGyver’s birthday present last year in a new tee-shirt for him.  There are tutorials out there specifically on how to fold shirts as giftwrap.  You can also use scarves, pashminas, fabric scraps (if you or your recipient sew), towels – any fabric really. Use re-usable bags instead of disposable gift bags.  The gift bags you buy in the card section are sometimes 4 or 5 dollars a piece when the reusable shopping bags up front with the cute designs are only 99 cents, and are REUSABLE.  Seems a little obvious.  And even if the paper gift bags are cheaper, they haven’t got a single advantage over re-usable bags – paper bags rip, pollute, and even though they can be reused, they crumple. There are so many absolutely adorable re-usable bags out there that can easily double as gift bags, I honestly see no reason to ever buy a “disposable” gift bag. Check out these reusable gift bags made of recycled materials:

3. Don’t Wrap It; Hide It – Finding baskets on Ostara or Easter is a blast, why not have that fun more often?  And who wouldn’t love opening up their sock drawer and finding a new watch?

4.  Give Experience.  Like This.  – Sometimes the best gifts don’t need to be wrapped at all.  Click the link for ideas of gifts of experience.

Tune in Soon for the next installment:  What to do with all the wrapping paper and holiday cards you receive this year.

* Every image on this post, while public domain, was linked to a tutorial and the creator of the image, but for some reason many of those links got wiped out.  If you own any of the images, please let me know so I can give you credit!

The post Sustainable Holidays: Wrapping Paper and Holiday Card Alternatives appeared first on Urban Earthworm.