With the holiday season in full swing, The Green Guide offers up some ways to have a greener holiday.

Wrap Responsibly
'Tis the season of giving, receiving and of throwing away. Americans toss out an extra 25 million tons of trash over the holidays, largely due to packaging. After the Christmas morning revels in my house, we labor to find the floor (much less the cat) buried under layers of used gift wrap. But when it comes time to clean up, we take great care to neatly roll and fold the glittery paper and tuck it away for reuse. Once that paper has wrapped its last gift and it's time to buy a new roll, we don't. Instead, we scan the house for other ways to wrap. This year, I'll be getting some use out of an old Ace of Base poster that came off the wall ages ago. And some sheer curtains that are a bit too Moulin Rouge for window dressing will become lovely Victorian-inspired packaging. Whenever possible, I won't be wrapping gifts at all, but rather, the wrapping will be the gift. Mom is getting a recycled glass jewelry in the pocket of a Livity hemp wallet, and my brother is taking home a pocket LED flashlight slipped inside a Klean Kanteen reusable water bottle (adorned with an organic cotton bow cut from an old t-shirt of course).

Not everyone has as much potential gift wrap lying around. Others are tightly bound to the paper tradition. If your wrapping paper habit is too ingrained to quit cold turkey, at least wrap responsibly. Look for paper made from tree-free materials like Papermojo's lokta or banana fiber sheets, or from post-consumer waste like Seltzer's 100 percent post-consumer recycled gift wrap.

Magnum Force
Whether it be a crimson pinot noir or a sparkling cava brut, elegant bottles of wine are a festive addition to holiday dinner tables around the world. But the beloved grape juice comes with an environmental cost. The bulk of the world's wine is cultivated in three countries--France, Italy and Spain--where it's loaded into fossil-fuel-guzzling trucks and airplanes to make its way to dinner. And in the United States, the fourth largest wine producer, 90 percent of the yield comes from California. The American Association of Wine Economists estimates global greenhouse gas emissions from wine production and distribution to be 5,336,600 tons--roughly the same amount that one million passenger vehicles would emit in a year.

Because shipping wine typically involves moving lots of heavy glass filled with some less-heavy wine, a local tipple greatly reduces the carbon output of the holiday toast. But if your preferences lean toward wines from a region far from home, buying local is not an option. The good news is that the bigger the bottle, the smaller the carbon impact per ounce. Larger bottles also cut back on glass packaging, which is costly to recycle and frequently ends up in landfills. On dinner outings with large groups of people, order a 1.5 liter (L) magnum that holds eight glasses rather than two .75 L bottles. Heller Estate's 2002 Organic Cachagua Cabernet Sauvignon ($45/1.5 L) is lovely and affordable for large dinner parties. For a splurge, try their 1997 Organic Signature Release Cabernet Sauvignon ($200/1.5 L) with flavors of ripe berry fruits, jammy cassis and dark chocolate. And if you're really thirsty, you can pick up a 1995 Cabernet Sauvignon in a three-liter bottle for $260. The more, the merrier...