Itchy City guide to Bristol. Food, drink, film, music, stage, events, shopping, offers and competitions within Bristol, Great Britain.

Spirit of Nature
www.spiritofnature.co.uk

This is the place to go for all of your fair trade and recycled extras like Christmas tree ornaments, gift boxes and tags, and Christmas cards. While many recycled ornaments we've come across have an alternative edge suited to the younger crowd that tends to be eco-conscious, these will be suitable for mum or granny. That way you can feel guilt-free about the fact that your Christmas purchases aren't killing the planet and mum can get exactly what she wants.

Love Eco
www.love-eco.co.uk

Need hostess gifts for all the parties your planning to ruin with your drunken shenanigans this year? Then head to this website for an array of homey (and cheap!) gifts for those people that you don't really know that well, but still feel the need to get gifts for. Love Eco sells unique Christmas cards and ornaments and all those little knick-knacky things that make up for being impersonal by being unique. Like wine bottle kimonos, whose purpose we still haven't really figured out.

Ecotopia
www.ecotopia.co.uk

If you can't find something for your hipster activist and eco-ignorant friends alike on this website then there's something wrong with you. And if you fall into the first category (for Itchy it depends on how we feel that morning, to be honest) then you can mine Ecotopia for recycled baking paper and a 'Grow Your Own Christmas Tree' kit. The best part of all this is how you can brag to your co-workers about how environmentally conscious you are when you bring in your batch of christmas cookies. For us that's a good enough reason to bother making the cookies in the first place.

Green My Style
www.greenmystyle.com

Itchy loves this website because it does all of our Christmas shopping for us. Worried yet again about getting your brother or boyfriend another gift that will end up in the dark depths of their closets, never to see the light of day? Then check out the site's list of guaranteed guy gifts. They've got other such lists for those other people in your life that you can't relate to like kids and people who have kids. Itchy's only problem is that most of the stuff that the site sells we want for ourselves, like it's Christmas party frocks and winter knitware.

Vintage Fabric Market
www.vintagefabricmarket.co.uk

You know that friend of your's that's just so hip that she can make something your mum, or even your granny, would wear look trendy? Itchy has a few and every year we have to worry about getting them something that they can wear with total disregard to color coordination and pattern clashing and still look great in. Which is why we're relieved that we found this site selling bags and brooches made from vintage floral fabrics and retro necklaces. Plus we can kill two birds with one stone and find presents for mum and granny.

Oxfam
www.oxfam.org.uk

Our go to place for good-deed-doing all year round, Itchy is also heading to Oxfam for it's 'Ethical Collection' of wrapping paper, Christmas cards and and the like. This year the organization is promising to send flat packs of wrapping paper rather than rolls for deliveray in order save more money for its charitable operations. Oxfam's second-hand store is also great place to find gifts for your hipster friends who go nuts for vintage and vinyl and being environmentally conscious.

Recycling Christmas Trees
www.nfumutual.co.uk/lifestyle/recycling-christmas-trees.htm

While rotting Christmas trees adequately express Itchy's mood once the Christmas season is over, we figure that this year instead of having to face a dead Christmas tree at the end of the drive, a sight which always sinks us even deeper into our depression, we'll do something that makes us feel good–helping the planet, followed by a few healthy doses of whiskey. There's a lot of different ways to recycle trees and you can either do it yourself by replanting the tree (hard work is not our style though) or inquire about local council or nursery services for removing and recycling them.

Christmas Vinyl
Christmas Vinyl

Itchy understands that within two or three days of the radio playing Christmas songs you've probably heard every single one...twice. So we recommend that the eco-friendly (and tragically hip) among you check out some vintage vinyl Christmas records. When you have your Christmas party you can play them and show off to everyone how retro and alternative you are. And what's a better Christmas gift than getting feel superior for thinking to do this before any of your friends.

The Green Apple
www.the-green-apple.co.uk

If you're one of those anal people who has to have perfectly wrapped gifts to give out at Christmas (Itchy is not, were fine with wrapping something in a copy of Metro that we found on the street) then you might want to consider the specially designed, recycled wrapping paper sold by the Green Apple. It'll go well with the site's eco-friendly and unique cards and will probably please the present recipient much more than a gift wrapped in a dirty, ripped newspaper (although we don't get why people have to be so particular).