Stop junk mail: Subscribe your gift recipient to a stop-the-junk-mail service like 41 Pounds; they will do all the legwork and contact direct-mail marketers on your behalf. Catalog Choice is a free service that blocks catalogs, but it doesn't deal with other types of junk mail. • Adopt a creature or an acre of rainforest in someone's name. • Sign up for a CSA: Buying a Community Supported Agriculture share for your family supports local (and often organic) farms. You can search for a CSA program in your area at LocalHarvest. • Teach a skill: Perhaps your friend or relative would love to learn to cook, knit, or play some killer power chords on the guitar? • Make plans: Offer to plan a series of events or outings: cook and eat dinner together; buy tickets for a concert, play, sports event, film festival, or lecture series; go on a hike; or take a class. • Give a museum membership or donate to an environmental organization. Consider charity gift certificates. • Get crafty. If you absolutely must give a tangible gift, try coming up with something handmade. Possibilities include sewing winter hats or gloves, compiling a photo album, baking holiday goodies, putting together a book of poems or stories you've written, or burning a CD of your last musical performance. Make sure to check out these tips on eco-friendly gift wrapping. • Ply with eco-booze: What better way to liven up a family holiday (dys)function than passing around bottles of organic wine, vodka, Scotch, or beer? •

Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, here.