Sustainable Families

Photo: jonathan rausseo

Happy New Year dear sustainabilitree friends! I hope you all enjoyed the two weeks off from school and enjoyed the snow! On my part, I was with my huge family in the Eastern Townships where 21 people squeezed into one country house for a week. Some would call it hell; others would say it’s sustainable. For that one week, we produced so much body heat, we had to turn the furnace down and only needed a cosy fire in the hearth in the living room after rolling in the snow. We all received wool socks and warm sweaters in our stocking anyways, so we might as well use them! Furthermore, we sure did lay off the interwebs, as there is no WIFI out there and a smartphone’s screen is small enough to write any email or Facebook stalk… painful.

Also, everything is so far away that we just had to make do with what we had in the house, so gift bags were re-gifted, broken ornaments fixed and the food re-heated. Speaking of which, there was none left. We ate it ALL. What with our daily 8 km hikes and sweaty games of trivial pursuit and talent shows, we had to sustain ourselves. The men in the family were the best at making a 10-layer sandwich with turkey, ham, gravy, stuffing, chilli, rice, tomatoes and cheese. Oh and did I mention pie and fruit cake?

All in all, I believe we did our share to greenify our holidays with our turkeys raised by my aunt and our “leave no food behind” motto. Enough about me, what did you do over the holidays?

~kath

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