The polar ice caps are melting before our eyes. Artificial snow will not be de rigueur this year.

Even as whales starve because of the plastic they have consumed, and landfills swell beyond all reason, one age-old holiday tradition that has been hard to shake is the habit of excess.

Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, Americans produce a colossal amount of waste, throwing out, by some estimates, 25 percent more stuff than they usually do, over one million extra tons of garbage each week. Food waste is a contributor, and so is traditional wrapping paper, the kind pocked with glitter or coated with plastic for that festive sheen, and therefore unfit for recycling.

According to the National Environmental Education Foundation, each year, on average, we discard 38,000 miles of ribbon, $11 billion worth of packing material and 15 million live Christmas trees.