How to Celebrate a Green Holiday Season

"I knew everything and received everything. But real happiness is giving." - Alain Delon

It’s officially the holiday season and, while we all enjoy these cooler months sipping on hot chocolate and snuggling up in cozy sweaters, we also get ready to shower all our special someones with gifts and the promise of cheery days together.

And while we celebrate, there are many ways we can enjoy our holidays while staying green from our choice of gifts, how we wrap them, create decorations, or who we choose to support! If you’re not sure where to start, we have a few suggestions, but before that, here’s how we at SUI celebrate consciously.

CELEBRATING CONSCIOUSLY

To celebrate consciously is to create and give with good intent. At SUI, we have always prided ourselves in standing by our green principles to help lessen our negative impact on the world and support our communities. When it comes to celebrations, we find it even more important to stick to those values and share with our conscious community (all of you) how wonderful a green holiday season can be! As you know, we spend everyday being as green as we can be. All our pieces from accessories to clothing, have been crafted in as green a way as they could be from using sustainable fabrics to herbal-dying, hand embroidering and more. For example, we are especially proud of our accessories edit, ‘An Upcycled Story’, where all our pieces are completely crafted in recycled and reused fabric scraps coming from our own workshop - a way we are working towards becoming zero waste.

One of our favourites from the edit is our fanny packs. As mentioned, they are crafted in leftover, sustainable scrap fabrics and have an adjustable embroidered belt with wooden buttons and buckles. It also has a front pocket and two main compartments for some extra room, so there's plenty of space to fit all your go-to items - we also always aim to make our pieces as versatile and multi-use as we can so they remain your friends for a long time to come.

Our headbands, masks and bookmarks are wonderful little gifts to give your loved ones and features some of our much loved fabrics and designs such as hand block printed fabrics, herbal-dyed fabrics and a mixture of hand and machine embroidered motifs - you’ll also spot a palm tree or a green heart on many of the pieces, a signature and symbol of SUI.

Another great gift are our basic tees. All crafted in organic cotton knit for that extra softness and comfort, these are perfect to pair with anything and everything, and look good on anyone! But, if you are unsure of what you special someone may specifically want, you can always get our Green Heart Gift Card that allows them to make the choice.

And this holiday season, with each December box, there’ll be some little green surprises added to them as a green treat from us to you - you can check out our online gift shop here for you green gifts!

GIVE GREEN

Choosing conscious brands and gifts are just one way you can give green. There are so many other little or big ways that can make all the difference. Here are our tips on how you can spend your holidays consciously...

To your loved ones - how to gift sustainably and the brands to buy from/support

Gifting consciously doesn’t necessarily mean buying sustainably crafted gifts. It can also mean how you present them in order to avoid waste as much as possible. Here’s how:

• Upcycle fabric, newspapers or magazine pages to use as gift wrapping.
• Hand-make cards and tags
• Reuse empty jars that are big enough to pack your gifts in - and do remember to reuse fabrics or paper to line the inside to keep your gift safe!
• If you’re one to create, whether that’s jewelry, clothing, even knitting, consider completely hand-making gifts.
• If you’re the gardening type, a plant from your garden is also a perfect green, eco-conscious gift and comes from the heart.

If you definitely want to buy something new for your loved ones, here are some green brands who craft sustainable gifts:

• Bare Necessities - a sustainable selfcare brand.
• left-handesign - a sustainable, Singapore based stationery and lifestyle brand.
• Noyra - a small Indian jewelry start-up perfect for lovers of timeless pieces and semi-precious stones.
• Sirohi / Skilled Samaritan - a sustainable homeware brand that supports its craft community. You can also donate to their Skilled Samaritan foundation that further supports their workers.
• Zerrin - an online platform to discover sustainable brands based in Singapore primarily. 
• The Bloomerie - for Bombay based green heart-ers, this brand sells indoor plants and terrariums so you can start your gardening journey!
• Mason and Co. - a small chocolate brand based here in India that sustains and supports its local community.

To those in need - charities/organisations helping those in need

In our global pandemic, those least privileged have been hit the hardest and so, helping out our communities, especially small, local ones, where we can is also a great way to give back.

• Zomato Feeding India - this charity is dedicated to feeding the underprivileged in India.
• WomenWeave - our green handloom partner who empower women and provide a safe, ethical space to work in.
• Paws for a Minute - dedicated to protecting, fostering, and rehabilitating stray dogs. 
• Dastakar - an NGO dedicated to supporting Indian crafters and cultivating traditional arts.
• Save the Children - by no means a small organisation but, nevertheless, dedicates themselves to supporting children in poverty and giving them an education.

To the planet - green actions and donating to organisations who implement green initiatives

And last but not least at all, give back to the organizations striving towards a greener future!

• SayTrees - we always need more trees in the world and this NGO hosts several plantation events all over India to make sure that happens.
• ReefWatch Marine Conservation - a Mumbai-based organisation dedicated to marine education, research and conservation.
• Ecosphere - based primarily in Himachal Pradesh, this organisation aims to provide sustainable livelihoods for their community who are also passionate about conservation and eco-travel.
• Grassroutes - This NGOs aim is to create conscious travel programs throughout rural India, engaging their travelers to learn more about these communities.
• Shuddi - this NGO leads several campaigns from beach clean ups to setting up relief funds for those in need.

And with that, we hope you have a wonderful holiday season with much love from the SUI team!