This holiday season the good folks at www.treehugger.com are putting the brakes on stress and over consumption and making a return to those idyllic holidays of old with their Slow Gift Guide, consisting of 12 categories and over 100 gifts.

Our favorite gift this year? The iphone Solar Skin from NovoThink:



...And make sure to keep an eye out because their Holiday Guides are also full of do-it-yourself projects, terrific recipes, and eco-friendly tips to help you celebrate smartly!

Here in Los Angeles one of our favorite free green resources is Whole Life Times Magazine. As usual, in their latest issue they shared the stories of a few local green businesses and one that we found particularly interesting is that of the Organic to Green beauty product line.

From the magazine:

Organic to Green Having spent years as a performing artist, California native Rianna Loving knew the importance of her skin’s outer appearance, but it wasn’t until motherhood brought an increased awareness of organics and social responsibility that she went back to school to study skincare. In 2009 she started Organic to Green, where she sells beauty products made with “ingredients the earth naturally provides to treat skin.” She soon realized that finding healthy ingredients was only the first step. “I didn’t want to put a quality organic lotion in cheap packaging where it would absorb the plastic it was packaged in,” Loving said. “I wanted to be green all the way, not be the contradiction I see out there.” Her decision to package her products in reused glass bottles meant starting a second company, ReuseCycle, and turning her backyard into a donation center where local restaurants and neighbors drop off wine, beer, and other types of glass which Loving then sanitizes before filling with soaps, moisturizers and salts. Any glass she can’t use is donated to others who want to lengthen its life. “Restaurants donate these unbelievably gorgeous wine bottles that are too big for my beauty line, but you can make them into the cutest lamps.”

They also featured the inspired story of how our good friends at Urth Caffe got their start. Click here to read more!

An Evening with Jonathan Safran Foer
WHEN: Saturday, November 7th, 2009
TIME: 7:00pm
LOCATION: Santa Monica Public Library
Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
COST: Free and open to the public

From the Sustainable Santa Monica Newsletter:
In 2006, Jonathan Safran Foer electrified Santa Monica readers with his Citywide Reads featured novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Now, he returns to Santa Monica to discuss his provocative new book, Eating Animals, a thoughtful examination of what we eat and why. On the brink of fatherhood and facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf, the on-again/off-again vegetarian began to explore why we eat animals and would we continue to do so if we knew how they got onto our dinner plates?


A book sale and signing will follow the author's presentation. Seating is limited. Tickets for Auditorium seating will be released one hour prior to event, and are available on a per person basis. Guest must be on hand to receive a ticket. No prior reservations available.


The Santa Monica Public Library is wheelchair accessible. For special disabled services, call Library Administration at (310) 458-8606 at least one week prior to event.
For more information, contact the Santa Monica Public Library at (310) 458-8600; or visit the Library's web site at www.smpl.org.

"Today Vice President Gore' latest book, Our Choice, is being released. Picking up where An Inconvenient Truth left off, Our Choice utilizes Mr. Gore's forty years of experience as a student, policymaker, author, filmmaker, entrepreneur and activist to comprehensively describe the real solutions to global warming. A co-recipient of the Nobel Peace prize in 2007 for his environmental work, Mr. Gore continues to make sense of the pressing issues we face and Our Choice will unquestionably inspire and rally those ready to fight for solutions that were deemed impossible only a short time ago.

Said Vice President Gore, "An Inconvenient Truth reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilization and that it must and can be solved. Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. Our Choice will answer that call."

What would a Thanksgiving meal be without TURKEY?

No other event on the Westside brings together such a wide collection of inter-faith organizations, companies and individuals. Participating in this event has forever changed the meaning of Thanksgiving for many of the volunteers and guests.

The Celebration relies entirely on donations from the local community. On Thanksgiving morning, volunteer chefs line up outside the Santa Monica Civic Center to deliver up to 300 piping hot roasted turkeys between 8am and 10am.

There are so many opportunities for you to get involved, even if you cannot be here on Thanksgiving Day. There are many tasks to accomplish before the day of the Celebration, and we welcome and appreciate your participation. We especially need volunteers on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving! We need your assistance with such tasks as: picking up and delivering items, setting up the facility, rounding up food and service donations, providing haircuts, greeting guests, and serving guests.

For more information on how you can help please visit www.westsidethanksgiving.org.