It's the Labor Day weekend — time for picnics, parades and end-of-summer fun.  Here are five easy ways to add some green to your Labor Day celebration:

Cut back on holiday shopping.  Most green advocates — from Lynn Colwell of Celebrate Green! to Alan Pultyniewicz of Montgomery County's Department of Environmental Protection — seem to have the same underlying message: buy less.  For Labor Day, that might mean bringing one less dish to the family barbeque or buying fewer bottles of soda for the company picnic.

Update your picnic basket.  Now is a great time to switch to resuable plates, cloth napkins, stainless steel straws and other resuable picnic supplies.  Instead of donating your mismatched cutlery to charity, toss it into your picnic basket.

Carpool to Labor Day events.  Reduce your carbon footprint this weekend by sharing rides.  Take your neighbors along to the 73rd Annual Labor Day Parade in Gaithersburg.

Visit a local park.  Along with breathtaking scenery, our local parks offer some wonderful nature programs.  Monarch Fiesta Day, a free, family-friendly event, runs today from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Black Hill Regional Park in Boyds.  Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg is holding a Backyard Bugs Habitat Hike tomorrow from 11 a.m. until noon; participants should meet in front of the park office.  The hike is free, but there is a $2 per person park entrance fee for Maryland residents ($3 per person for non-residents) on weekends and holidays through October. 

Savor fresh local produce.  You can pick-your-own Gala apples, red raspberries and blackberries this holiday weekend at Butler's Orchard in Germantown.  Labor Day is the last public picking day of the year for Butler's blackberry crop.  Homestead Farm in Poolesville has white and yellow peaches, tomatoes and apples ripe and ready for public harvest.  This is the last weekend for Honeycrisp apples at Homestead and the start of the Early Fuji and Crimson Crisp apple picking season.  And the Clarksburg Town Center Farmers' Market runs tomorrow from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.

Whatever you do this weekend, don't forget to enjoy your holiday.  When trying to live green, it's easy to get lost in a sea of negative environmental dogma.  How many times have you heard, "Stop doing this right now or you'll kill the earth!" 

Relax.  Do what you can.  Plan to make one eco-friendly change during the next year and stick with it. 

If you're like me and you've fallen off the green wagon recently — yes, that was my family buying those pre-packaged lunches for school again — cut yourself some slack.  Consider this Labor Day weekend a time to recommit yourself to making an eco-friendly change for the earth, one small green step at a time.