During the holiday season we are supposed to be in the giving, jolly mood by being grateful for what we have and to help others who are less fortunate.

However, the money spent on holiday decorations, Christmas trees, gift wrapping paper and good food, ends up wasted and produces tons of garbage.

Purchases throughout the holiday season reach the point of becoming excessively wasteful as Christmas wrapping paper, boxes, and bags, create the need for the solution of having to recycle these same products to reduce throwing away unnecessary garbage.

According to answerbag.com, there are four million tons of gift wrapping paper and shopping bags thrown away as waste each year in the United States alone.

The worst part about it, this is only an addition to the other five million tons of garbage from different products that are used for holiday festivities.

Among one of the effects of Christmas waste is the excessive pollution of holiday lights that many of our neighbors like to decorate their houses and Christmas trees with.

An article this year by Independent Weekly, had a survey from gocompare.com that recorded that an average of 52 percent of respondents decorate their houses with a display of at least 100 five-watt bulbs turned on for more than half of the day.

This amounts to 22.8 days of energy being wasted every 24 hours.

When it comes to the matter of the over-usage of lights, what is being released from these lights into the atmosphere, is a serious case of pollution in the form of CO2.

If people really wanted to have a holiday where there isn’t that much to clean up afterward, then reusing some decorations and Christmas wrapping paper for the next year will surely be the way to do so.

Simply going on the Internet and typing “how to make Christmas gift wrapping paper” on Google or any other search engine will help you to get creative this holiday season and make your gift even more heartwarming by showing how much time you actually took to craft one’s present.

The list of making gift wrapping paper, bags and cards goes on by looking up different ideas on how you can get expressive.

Although it does seem rather much of a hassle for some people, it doesn’t mean that you can’t at least try to custom-make one of your family member’s, or friend’s, Christmas gift.

Of course more than few people down the neighborhood that have gotten into the joyful season of decorating their houses inch by inch with ornaments and lights, probably do wonder about the electricity bill afterwards.

One of the many solutions to avoid worrying yourself on the energy bill is to head down to any home improvement store where you can find energy-saving LED string lights.

These lights not only last longer but also help re¬duce light pollution and wasteful electricity use.

What must be remembered during the holidays is what we already have to reuse, so we don’t get even more stuff. This gives us the time to enjoy the holidays, eating food and opening up our presents without guilt.