Happy New Year!

We’re back and we’re full of fun plans for making 2011 a great, green, year – starting with the great yoyomama goodie giveaway with over $2K of prizes to be won. This week we’ll be full of good ideas to get your year off to a great start, starting with ideas for cleaning up the detritus of Christmas so you can pack it all away and move on into the New Year:

Christmas Tree Recycling at UBC Botanical Garden
Sunday December 26th -  Sunday January 9th, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm, UBC Botanical Garden parking lot, at 6804 South West Marine Drive, Vancouver
When you drop your tinsel- and decoration-free tree off at the UBC Botanical Garden not only will they chip it and use the mulch on their trails but the proceeds for this by-donation service will support the David Thompson Secondary School garden: www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org

The City of Vancouver & Lions Club Vancouver Tree Chipping Events
Saturday & Sunday, January 8th & 9th, 10 am – 4 pm, Kerrisdale Community Ice Rink parking lot (East Boulevard north of 41st Avenue); Kitsilano Beach parking lot (Cornwall Avenue and Arbutus Street); Sunset Beach upper parking lot (Beach Avenue and Broughton Street); and RONA Home and Garden Grandview Store (2727 East 12th Avenue – overflow parking lot south of 12th Avenue)
The chippings from this annual event are composted at the Vancouver Landfill and your donations of cash or non-perishable food items are distributed to local charities: vancouver.ca

And if you can’t make any of the above events, city crews will be picking up live cut trees as part of their yard trimmings collection service until January 31st or you can drop your tree for free at the Vancouver South Transfer Station or the Vancouver Landfill through January 31st.

And we’ve mentioned reusing your holiday cards before but we just wanted to remind you that you can save this year’s cards and cut them down to make next year’s gift tags or to decorate next year’s packages. Wrapping scraps can be used for craft projects and red paper can be saved for Valentine’s Day crafting. And here’s a whole heap of ideas for crafts you can make with leftover cardboard boxes.

As for the chocolate and other treats lingering in your cupboards, we’ll leave “cleaning” those up to you.

Here’s to a wonderful 2011!