Want to give funky holiday gifts to your family and friends, but minimize the impact on the environment?

Here's some "green" gift ideas that aren't exactly conventional, but still have plenty of appeal.

For instance, an "Aero Garden" is an indoor growing system that uses an energy efficient CFL bulb and water to grow vegetables and herbs indoors.

Schaun Norstedt, Ace Hardware store manager, said, "It'll be fun to watch it grow and a fun thing to do with your kids, that kind of thing. Growing your own vegetables - I guess it's using green to grow green!"

There's no soil involved, and you can harvest your plants in about 28 days - or just enjoy a winter garden.

Another place with some some unique eco-friendly gifts is Planet Earth in downtown Great Falls; they offer plenty of unique gifts that live up to the store's name.

The offer gifts made from all kinds of recycled goods, including license plates, seatbelts, bottle caps and inner tubes, purses crafted from old coffee bags, plastic rice sacks, and even old billboards.

There's also a variety of funky jewelry made out of materials such as plastic bottle caps, recycled aluminum, and vintage buttons.

The store offers other trinkets made from green materials such as hemp bags and wallets - even paper made from real animal droppings.

And those are just a small sampling of the eco-friendly gift ideas out there; if you want to be a "green" Santa this year, there are plenty of choices.