I nearly forgot about Earth Hour this year but Hayley reminded me after they discussed it at school and then it was mentioned quite a bit in my friends feed on Facebook. A lot of people like to complain about Earth Hour saying that it’s a useless observation. They say that it doesn’t make any sort of substantial change as far as energy conservation goes because as soon as the hour is over people turn their lights, computers, televisions, etc. back on and forget about it.

I disagree though. Yes, many people will go right back to their usual ways but if even a small percentage decide that it’s nice to not have everything lit up like you’re trying to land planes, well that’s a chance for a difference. It’s also about education. I can talk about energy conservation with the kids at any time but having a special day set aside (such as this one or Earth Day in April) makes it more interesting for them. Hayley liked knowing that people all around the world were shutting off their lights at a specific time.

Anyway, our Earth Hour was low-key, no big gathering or party although that would have been fun too. We simply shut everything off and lit candles in the living room, and I brought out the little candle fondue set. I put chocolate in the fondue, cut up bananas, apples, and strawberries, and we sat together as a family just enjoying ourselves.

At one point they both wanted to use their DSi and although they could have theoretically done that (since they were charged up and required no power) I told them that would sort of defeat the purpose anyway. I explained that part of Earth Hour is to conserve energy but part of it is also to remind ourselves that we don’t need electronics every second of the day (that’s a good reminder for me too, me being the person who uses my iPod Touch to check my email as soon as I wake up, often before I even roll out of bed).

We just talked and hung out, and at one point Hayley decided to do the before-bed yoga routine she’s been doing for about a month. It seemed like such a nice idea that I did a little bit of yoga myself. I think I may have to do candlelit yoga again soon.

Once 9:30 came around – actually it was almost 9:45 by the time we noticed the clock – we got the kids ready for bed and George and I did turn the TV back on for a movie. We didn’t turn all the lights back on though, just a little bit of light. We watched The Day After Tomorrow which, yes, is a ludicrous movie but it’s exciting and I thought it was kind of fitting to watch something that showed results of climate change after celebrating Earth Hour.

Next year I think it might be fun to invite some friends over for the evening; if our future home in Halifax has a fireplace (a lot of them do!) that would be nice too, to sit by the fire in the dark.

Did you celebrate Earth Hour? What did you do?

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One last thing – My sister (who has moved her blog to a new location) is 39 weeks along in her pregnancy today. She could go into labour at any moment (theoretically; she said that she doesn’t feel any signs that birth is imminent right now) and she put up a post asking for readers to guess when her baby will be born. If you could take a moment, please go take a guess and maybe you’ll be right! Breanna picked today, the 28th and Amanda’s father-in-law had a vivid dream that it would be today as well. I think Baby Guthrie will make an appearance on April 1st. What do you think?