Editor’s note: We at SASS are not in the product/service endorsement business. Our ideas are meant only to give some helpful hints and ideas, and help you make your own green-giving decisions. SASS strongly encourages you to generally reduce your environmental footprint, and please, buy and consume in moderation. Happy Holidays!

Procrastinators, delight! To help all of you out there who want to show gratitude and love through snazzy gifts, all while helping to sustain the earth, SASS offers you this complete holiday gift-giving guide, complete with wrapping tips and ways to keep your gifts big and your holiday eco-footprint small.

Here are a few tips on making your hard-earned cash go as far as it can:

  • Be creative and make something! Nothing beats the sentiment of a thoughtful, homemade gift. They’re one-of-a-kind, person-specific and unique.
  • If you don’t know what to buy someone, consider a gift certificate, so you know they’ll want the gift and it won’t be returned or shipped again.
  • Think about nonmaterial gifts, like tickets to an upcoming sporting event, movie, play or other cultural event. You could always make a charitable donation in someone’s name to their favorite charity or non-profit like (here comes the shameless plug) the Sustainable Style Foundation.
  • As always, look for gifts with recyclable content or gifts that are easily and readily recyclable when their life as a gift is finished.
  • If you buy something for the gadget freak on your list that requires batteries, include a set of rechargeable batteries and recharger.
Cordless lamps, for candlelight without the candles.
Here are a few of our favorite things:

From designobject.com come some handy ways to brighten up your holidays.

Vessel's Candela portable lights, made from durable plastic, give off the same warm glow as candlelight, and their convenient size makes them perfect for setting on a table or windowsill. No need for matches, or batteries; the lamps recharge while resting in their base via magnetic induction technology, with no exposed contacts. Simply lift a lamp from the charger, and it re-illuminates automatically.

For the first time ever, the Happy Blackout kit allows you the ability to give the illusion of power as a gift.

The Happy Blackout kit will keep you smiling when the lights go down.

Conceived in anticipation of Y2K, then put to the test in the rolling black-outs of California's recent energy crisis, the Happy Blackout kit comes ready to quell panic and steady nerves whenever the municipal authorities have left you in the dark.

The kit comes completely flat with its own mailing envelope. Just fold open the laser-cut brushed stainless steel body, attach to the wall, and place a traditional light bulb in the front of the horizontal arm. Light a tea candle in the section behind, and voila! The lights are back on.

The Happy Blackout kit ships flat with the enclosed envelope for easy gift-giving. Sure, it's just the illusion of normalcy. But in times of crisis, isn't that the most important thing?

These PV cells will put a charge in your cell phone.
To help reduce your dependence on those inconsistent municipal power people, Real Goods brings us the pocket-size, folding Solar e-Power Charger. It charges most models of Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola or Samsung cell phones with the most consistent power source we've got: the sun. For all your small-battery charging needs, this baby can also charge 4 AA or AAA batteries in the attached batter holder, and charges your phone via solar direct or energy stored up in the batteries. The folding design keeps it small and protects the cells during transport. A handy-dandy power cord adapter is even included.

This radio works anywhere in the world, without having to plug it in.
Also from Real Goods comes this cool universal device, because radio never takes a vacation, even if you do. For a trip to the beach, or a global trek, this stylish, compact radio works anywhere in the world. It covers four radio bands: FM, AM, SW, and LW for local radio, wherever in the world you might be. It's powered by a rechargeable NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) battery pack, and you charge it with the built-in solar panel, the built-in dynamo crank (30 seconds of cranking gives about 30 minutes of listening), or with the included AC/DC power adapters, that include world plug adapters.

An indicator light shows optimum charging. If you don't want everyone in Europe to know you're a Yankees fan, plug into the earphone socket included for private listening, or broadcast to the masses with the built-in speaker. It comes complete with a shortwave antenna, worldwide travel plug adapter, an international shortwave guide, and a very handy travel pouch.

Ahh, the power of water.
You won't ever have to buy any batteries, plug in any cords or find a sunny spot to use this LCD clock and calculator -- both work using nothing more than good old H-2-0! The secret is a patented revolution in fuel cell technology that harnesses the energy of water molecules to provide a futuristic stream of pollution-free electrical current. Just pull out the two tiny reservoir tubes from underneath the clock's sleek arch, fill them from your tap, sit back and be amazed! For two months, you'll have enough power for as much clock-watching and hand-calculating you can take. Click on over to Real Goods to give it a closer look.

Composting, city-style.
Real Goods also offers the world the sexiest, most urban-friendly composter we've ever seen (and sexy isn't usually a word we associate with the composting process). Built-in rollers in this urban-smart composter let you effortlessly mix in oxygen to speed decomposition –- fast decomposition for a fast city life -- and it's compact enough to store on a balcony or patio. The composter is made of 50% post-consumer recycled plastic and produces up to 85 lbs. of rich, fertile compost in as little as 30 days without odors. A removable base collects compost drips, a nutritious and delicious byproduct for gardens and plants, and a secure latching door is hinged for easy filling and detaches for emptying.

Now there can be a method to your holiday madness.
When it comes to gift-giving, method reminds us all to stay away from ‘dirty gifts’ this holiday season, because fruitcake is not a biodegradable gift. Exactly the reason that method offers their snazzy holiday kit, made from natural, biodegradable ingredients. This “handy? kit includes hand wash, hand lotion and two candles, all wrapped up in a nice red box with a nice holiday greeting. It’s available exclusively online, and if you hurry up and get one for yourself and one for that special someone on your list, they’ll even ship it to you and yours for free! Go to methodhome.com for more details. When the holidays get messy, method is always there to clean things up.

Once upon a time, there was a small mountain of glass growing off Interstate 5 near Portland, Oregon, and it needed to go somewhere. It had a one-way ticket for the land fill, but St.

These coasters will make your glasses jealous.
Vincent de Paul of Lane County took note, and from that the Aurora Glass Foundry was born. Since then, Aurora Glass has become an innovative resource for the community, recycling old windows and other waste glass previously without a recycling avenue.

Aurora manufactures their popular line of products for wholesale and retail sale, as well as creating custom works both large and small. When you buy something from them, feel good about yourself; all profits from Aurora are returned to the community in the form of assistance for homeless and low-income people through emergency services, housing, jobs, training, and other charitable endeavors. Aurora Glass gifts are a great way to give something to a special someone, while giving something back to a grateful community at large. Take a look at auroraglass.org for more info on all their groovy glass.

Great for just hanging around the house.

How does all this work? Recycled glass is collected, crushed, washed and mixed with metallic oxides that will produce rich colors when melted. Once the furnace is loaded with 500 pounds of the crushed glass, the "batch" is transformed into a glowing liquid and "cooked" at 2300 degrees over night. Artisans form the molten glass into architectural and decorative works of art for your home; unique items created exclusively by hand casting and the use of molds and stamps. Creating treasure from yesterday's trash is a beautiful thing, and everyone at Aurora is proud to make products of simple beauty that also help reduce landfill waste in our community.

Our friends at Eco Arts would like to take this opportunity to give us a quick chemistry lesson, and if you pay attention until the end, there will be a prize. Seriously. Ready? Polyethyl terephthalate,

Win yourself a beautiful print hand-painted on a canvas woven from recycled plastic, just for being a SASS reader!
commonly known as PET, is a polyester, thermoplastic polymer. It is a plastic resin used to make the strongest plastic for the manufacture of bottles and containers for soft drinks, water, fruit juice, food, cosmetics, medicines, spirits, and hygiene and cleaning products, among other things. Doesn't sound like very nice stuff, but Eco Arts has come up with an ingenious way to keep this stuff out of our trash. The majority of products manufactured and sold by Eco Arts are hand woven using polyester fabric made from recycled PET plastic bottles. This type of polyester fabric is of very high quality and is already being used by some other ecologically-friendly companies to make t-shirts and other garments. The offcuts of this fabric are the raw material they use, as Eco Arts endeavors ever closer to their ideal of a 100 percent rate of reuse of each PET bottle. Those products not weaved from recycled PET are painted on handmade paper and dried cattails. After weaving, each item is individually hand painted by plastic artist Isaura Mattos. Most items depict Brazilian motifs, Mattos' country of origin, but custom orders are always welcome.

Did you pay attention? Good, because Eco-Arts is going to raffle off a piece of their very unique hand-made art to a lucky SASS reader for free! Just click here, leave your name, email address, and "SASS readers love Eco Arts" in the required fields to enter yourself in the drawing, to be held at the end of January. Be sure to check out their website for more examples of their stunning work.

So, you've made it all the way through the SASS Magazine Green Gift Giving Guide, but you need ideas for future-friendly gift-wrapping? Well, you're in luck! When the time comes to stick your green gifts under the tree, consider these options:

  • Wrap thematically: kitchen gifts in a colorful dish towel or oven mitt, books in a reusable canvas shopping sack, gardening gifts in the pocket of an apron, planter, or bucket, etc. You get the idea.
  • Decorate oversized gifts with just a bow that can be used again.
  • Check out Tibet Collection’s wrapping paper made from the daphne (or lotka, in Nepalese) shrub, whose bark is sustainably harvested. The paper is handmade and hand-printed by Nepalese artisans, and so durable that it can be used to wrap gifts several times over. $20 gets you five 20? x 30? sheets in three color palettes. 1-800-318-5857 or tibetcollections.com.
  • Smith & Hawken’s wrap, in gold or silver, is made of 100 percent recycled paper, and you can have some if you’ve got $8, or $9 per roll for the patterned paper that has 10 percent recycled content. 1-800-981-9888 or smithandhawken.com.
  • If you wrap in traditional "wrapping paper," encourage careful unwrapping and keep large, reusable pieces around for future use.
All of us here at SASS wish you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season! See you next year!

Sources: EcoMall.com and Eco-artware.com.