Despite the color of all the decorations adorning stores, the holidays are probably the least green time of the year, given how much our overall consumption skyrockets. But one of the most amazing changes since Plenty launched three years ago has been the explosion in sustainable products available to shoppers. We used to struggle to fill our Green Gear® section with ten interesting things that were good for the earth. Now we stretch to find room in the magazine for all of the inventive eco merchandise out there.

In our very first holiday gift guide edition of Green Gear®, we kept them all under $50. Since then we’ve loosened up because we didn’t want to exclude today’s stellar options, made of anything from bio-based plastics to 100-percent recycled content. Our special holiday edition of Green Gear® (page 43) has something for everyone, from the tech geek in your life to a chew toy for man’s best friend. And once you’re done checking those out, don’t forget our gifts for foodies (page 82); or the Wollemi pine, an ancient tree thought to be long extinct that we feature at the start of this issue (page 15, also pictured above). It’s useful for filtering the air in your home or office, and a unique, attractive link to an era when dinosaurs roamed the planet. (We just purchased one for Plenty’s headquarters.)

Going green is certainly all the rage, but things haven’t gone so far that people are using CFLs as stocking stuffers. (Though I’m sure many of you replaced your holiday lights with more-efficient LEDs, like I did at my in-laws’ place.) As you consider how to substitute more eco-friendly purchases for traditional ones this year, however, consider that a major part of sustainable living is simply getting by with a little less.

We would love to hear about how all of you are making your holidays a little greener this year. Send an e-mail to us at gogreen@plentymag.com. The three readers who come up with the most inventive way to green their holiday will get a Plenty T-shirt and a one-year subscription to the magazine to keep or pass on to a friend. In the meantime, green tidings to all.