It’s almost Christmas, and if your family is anything like mine (I really don’t know how likely that is), there will be mile-high piles of wrapping paper and ribbon by noon on Saturday. We’ve tried to recycle paper and ribbons year-to-year, but there’s always more to be done to make sure your holiday cheer doesn’t take down more of the Amazon than it has to.

Inventor Spot has put together a sensible list of things you can do to minimize the environmental impact of your gifts — never mind the fact that the gifts themselves manufactured in factory towns in China, filled with toxic materials, and surrounded with blister packaging. But I digress, and that’s a whole other problem. There’s nothing wrong with minimizing the waste you create.

I particularly like the road maps idea. They’re big, they look cool, and they’re robust enough to be reused. I’m also a fan of plain brown paper — buy a huge roll of it and you can use it both for wrapping and packing material, and when you’re done, it’s perfectly recyclable.

Got any tips on how you keep things green during your festivities?