“Celebrate Green is not a step-by-step instruction manual.  It is not a manifesto of eco-conscious behaviors.  It was conceived as a means to bring together ideas that will stimulate you to think and act in ways that may be new to you when you celebrate life’s most important moments.” Lynn Colwell and Corey Lipson-Colwell

Several years ago, Corey Colwell-Lipson was on a quest to make trick or treating healthier for her children. Engaging her local Whole Foods market and a host of other organizations, businesses and parents, she sparked a movement in her community to make Halloween safer, more environmentally friendly and healthier for everyone.  She and her mother, Lynn Colwell, took the idea to another level when together they conceived a book that would apply to all holidays.  For Lynn, such a book had the potential to resolve the hypocrisy of going green every day except for celebrations and holidays when “un-earth-friendly” acts such as excessive consumption and waste generation peak.  Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family was born.

Articulate and entertaining, the Celebrate Green! offers information and ideas for earth-friendly and health conscious celebrations year round.  From Christmas gift giving to finding conflict-free diamonds for a marriage proposal, from recipes to pest control, nearly every conceivable holiday or event is covered in chapters arranged by season.  Throughout the book, the authors present potential pitfalls as well as common environmental debates and health-related dilemmas, each coinciding with well-researched solutions in the form of personal vignettes and sidebars.  A lot of great questions are asked and answered in the form of conversational Q & A sections.
Astonishing facts about waste, toxins, food, health risks and environmental threats offer provocative insight behind why their ideas are also important.

Laced throughout the book is an underpinning of philanthropy.  Prior to publishing the book in 2008, Lynn and Corey formed The Green Year® LLC, a company they eventually hope to turn into a not-for-profit business, giving proceeds to causes they support. They had pledged to donate 5% of the proceeds from the book to Treewing, a Seattle non-profit that works to improve the health of children and prevent obesity.  Suggested environmental and charitable non-profits appear in nearly every section – and so many ideas seem born from an ethic of contributing to the betterment of people, a community, or the planet.

All in all, Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family is a delightful read and an excellent reference guide to keep handy all year. Recommended!