Column Facts are facts.

Just in case you haven’t had enough of Sexy Santas, here are a few more holiday-related tidbits. It’s also a chance to look back and take stock of just how sexy this year really was.

Estimated net worth of the mobile-phone dating industry in 2011: $550 million

iPhone users who believed other iPhone users made the best romantic partners: 83%

Number of respondents in the same survey who would rather give up sex than their phones for a week: 1/3

21%: Percentage of Playboy.com visitors in 2011 who described themselves as “very religious”

Estimate net worth of the online dating industry in 2011: 4 billion

Number of complaints about online dating services registered with the Better Business Bureau in the last year: 2660

$16.47: Price of “Santa’s Little Helper” vibrator on Amazon

Number of attendees at this year’s St. Louis’ sex-positive, clothing-optional Fleshtivus celebration: 50

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The first night of Chanukah falls on December 1st this year – and if you didn’t know that, then welcome to the club. A casual survey of Jews and gentiles alike leads me to believe that pretty much no one realized how early the holiday would begin this year. Even those of us who “celebrate” Chanukah think of it as coming right around Christmas – and I put “celebrate” inside snarky quotation marks because no matter what Jewish parents tell our kids, Chanukah really is kind of a snooze. Plain, boring, and a little bit sad, it is the ugly step-sister of holidays.

For Jewish children, Chanukah is the consolation prize they get because Christmas is not their holiday. What started out as a minor occasion in the Hebrew calendar has been tarted up with gifts and chocolate coins in a desperate effort to compete with Christmas (or as it’s more commonly known: The Best Holiday Ever.) Over the years I have tried to get my kids amped up about the Festival of Lights, but no matter how many times I read them The Pop Up Book of Chanukah, they remained largely unimpressed. Every year I would wage a hard-sell campaign to interest them in dreidels – those iconic symbols of the holiday that are also massively un-fun playthings. But  I always felt that I was selling them on something I myself couldn’t get too worked up about.

Look at the facts: Christmas features festively decorated evergreen trees that twinkle with fairy lights and smell like happiness – Chanukah has a candle holder and it smells like fried foods. Christmas has Santa, flying in on a sled delivering huge piles of toys and goodies. Chanukah has one good present on the first night, quickly followed by inferior gifts for the next seven (by the end of the week my kids are getting Number Two pencils and throat lozenges). Christmas has Jingle Bells, The Chestnut Song and Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer – Chanukah music is all about minor chords and aggravation.

The biggest disappointment for Jewish children is the lack of a tree, a deprivation my kids have been whining about ever since they first learned to talk. But that’s hardly their only complaint about this ho-hum oil-based occasion. So, in a last-ditch effort to drum up holiday spirit, I have devised a new and improved way to present Chanukah to my family: this year I have gone to great pains to play up the fact that Chanukah is based on the fact that early Jews were able to get eight days of light out of oil that was supposed to last for just one night. Looked at this way, Chanukah is all about optimizing non-renewable resources and getting the most use out of fossil fuels. My daughter is a fervent environmentalist, and I had big hopes that this argument would help her to finally love Chanukah – for its eco-friendliness if nothing else. Smug and self-impressed I pointed out to her that Chanukah was probably the first holiday that could be considered green. “Christmas trees are green,” was my daughter’s sad and hopeful reply.

I give up.

Editor’s Note: Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: seantoyer

The post The Goldberg Variations: Merry Mazel Tov! appeared first on EcoSalon.

But step inside, and it’s beginning to look a lot like Hanukkah. You want tinsel? We got tinsel. You want some banners and dreidels? Come in, come in, have a jelly donut, sit by the fire. We know from decorating for the holidays. We’re yuppie Jews who majored in art.

For me, getting in the spirit of the season isn’t limited to peeling potatoes for latkes and lighting the menorah. I like going that extra mile (oy, my back!) to hang ornaments, gather festive decor and make merry the Jewish way. Have a peek, darling:

Hang Blue and White Ornaments

Etsy Star of David Ornament

Large handmade six-sided star surrounded by copper band. Pattern created with clear and light blue faceted beads, highlighted with golden foil lined beads. Golden glitter on back. 4×3, $33.

Etsy Mosaic Peace Crane Origami

Beautifully handcrafted at Etsy, $6 each.

Recycled Blue Glass Balls from World of Good

Support fair trade and suspend these balls or collect in a pretty vintage mercury glass bowl. $9 each, handmade from glass bottles from restaurants and homes.

Put up a Banner That Screams “We’re Fun, Too!”

2009 Happy Hanukkah, $25 from eco-friendly Land of Nod

Spread the Wealth By Scattering Gold Coins

Fair Trade Chocolate Gold Coins, $5.25 from Global Exchange

The cocoa used in these chocolates is from Kuapa Kokoo, a cooperative of 40,000 cocoa growers in Ghana. Spread them around the menorah or dining table to add to the festive motif. No snacking until you’ve finished that grassfed brisket and kugel!

Gather Menorahs Old and New, Borrowed and Blue

This mixed media Moving Lights Menorah was hand fabricated by British sculptor Richard Miller with a base made of Vermont green slate and nine movable stone candle holders. The earth-friendly conversation piece is $85 at Eco Atware. Assemble it on a table with other menorahs loved and cherished through the years.

Recycled Galvanized Steel Pipe Menorah. $185 from Two String Jane, at Etsy.

The post Oy to the World! Decorating Tips for an Eco Hanukkah appeared first on EcoSalon.

Oh Chanukah, Oh Chanukah, come light the LED Menorah! Let’s have a party, we’ll all dance the hora.

Gather round the responsibly harvested table, we’ll give you a treat, dreidels to play with and organic latkes to eat.

That’s the chant I hope members of my tribe will be singing during the upcoming festival of lights.  We can’t compete with Christmas and the surfeit of colorful decorations that line roofs and front lawns…and maybe that’s a good thing. Instead of connecting new, energy-sucking lights, we can turn ours off, light the menorahs with soy candles, or buy a $25 battery operated LED Motherboard Menorah (above) at Fred Flare which allows you switch on a candle for each night.

Here are some other ways to green the silver and blue this season:

If you send Chanukah cards, opt for a 100% recycled photo message from My Good Greetings. Their images are really beautiful and natural and no new trees have to be killed to recall the burning of the oil in the temple.

Make latkes the way Bubba made them before corporations corrupted farming methods. You can find wonderful organic potato pancake recipes at sites like Sustainable Table which call for organic potatoes and  fresh ingredients. Naturally, you will want to top them off with a dollop of organic sour cream and apple sauce. Let your kids help make them (my husband will be pitching in at school this week for a latke tutorial) and tell them you are using organic ingredients.

You can also find great recipes for the traditional jelly donuts (sufganiyot), including a delicious, wheat-free, low fat option I stumbled upon at Hoshana Rabbah.

If you have children and follow the ritual of presenting a gift each night for eight nights, I love the idea someone once shared of selecting a theme and making each night about that theme, for example, reading  (a great book on the planet); gardening (a tool and seeds for your organic veggie plot); animals (a DVD on saving the polar bears or other endangered species). And don’t buy wrapping paper for these treasures. Just reuse your reusable bags, and let them pull the items out.

They will enjoy the gifts hidden in earthy canvas just as those wrapped in wasteful paper.

Front page thumbnail image: Unhindered by Talent

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