Fun and Games : For the environmentally aware, holiday gifts can include video games, books and fashion.

This year’s holiday gift recommendations, drawn from 1992’s Earthwatch columns, reveal an interesting trend in environmental fun and games.

In the past, “environmental” usually meant sober, earnest or bland products. Such things are still on the market, but they’ve been joined by some really delectable, entertaining, high fashion, high-tech stuff.

Video Games

SEGA, the video-game company, has just released a product called Dolphin. In the most recent edition of Game-Pro, the tip-sheet that youngsters have been consulting lately, the reviewer enthuses: “Dolphin is one of the most original, graphically spectacular, intelligently thought out (games) ever to swim in the SEGA Genesis format or any other game system, for that matter.”

According to the instructions, players of the $55 game take the role of “a lonely dolphin survivor . . . you must find out why your friends and family disappeared . . . you can only stay under water so long . . . and only take a limited number of hits (hey, dolphin skin is sensitive).”

It’s available at Kids R Us and Target for about $50. Also take a look at the SEGA Genesis game Global Gladiators (they thrash trash) and Toxic Crusaders (they fight slimy polluters); they’re in the same price range.

If you think your kids will find those themes too tame, they can take on Global Effect. Made by Millennium Co., this $50 game, which has to be played on an IBM compatible or Amiga computer, requires players to save not only their own hides but everyone else’s as well.

Within the game, children can choose different types of undertakings, or “strategy simulations,” such as “Save A World,” “Create A World” and “Rule A World.”

If you have children such as mine--they think they know everything--you might consider putting them in front of the family home computer during the holiday season to “save a world from man-made crises with limited time and economic power at (their) disposal.” (This is a quote from the game’s wrapper.) Another scenario allows youngsters “to compete with another player to win domination over the world.” It’s available at local computer software stores.

Books

If you find this how-to-play-God software a bit pricey, try a $3 version, in book form. Titled “Kids’ Quick Guide To How To Save The Animals,” this tome contains my favorite first step for saving the planet: Build a house for bats. The book is available at Adventures For Kids, a bookstore in Ventura. Jody Fickes, the owner, also recommends “A River Runs Wild,” by Lynne Cherry, at $15. It’s a beautifully illustrated real-life saga of the return--following death by pollution--of the Nashua “Hold Your Nose” River in New Hampshire to its beautiful natural condition.

Videocassettes

A fictional, fabulous account of another environmental rescue can be purchased in videocassette form. It’s “FernGully,” the 20th-Century Fox animated movie with Robin Williams voicing the hilarious character of the bat who saves the rain forest. It’s a holiday special for about $20 at Toys R Us, Adventure For Kids and video stores.

Fashion

That’s enough high-tech. What about high-fashion environmental gifts? Organically grown cotton might sound like the California version of a hair shirt, but it’s not. It feels fabulous to wear. I bought a T-shirt made of this fabric to use as pajamas.

A couturier in the Ojai arcade, Mary Gabriels, is carrying it, styled in a high-fashion line of men’s and women’s sportswear. Her shop, Rains, has organic cotton items such as classic dress-for-success blazers at $90 and skirts at $58.

The manufacturer’s name, Wearable Integrity, is a bit daunting. The point is that cotton produced this way in California saves the soil and avoids polluting our water. But the designs are wonderful. “The line is doing quite well in its first season with us,” said Gabriels.

Wines

That’s high fashion. Now comes something environmental that’s also delectable. Wine made from organically grown grapes has come into its own. The big companies such as Sutter Home and even Gallo are doing more and more pressing from such grapes. Fetzer has gone 100% organic and has earned the California Certified Organic Farmers authorization to say so on its labels. In a way, California vintners might just be reinventing the wheel by switching back to methods that the better French vintners have always used. Anyway, organic wines priced at about $8 make nice gifts for friends you know who are environmentally engaged.

Eating Well magazine tested 21 organic California reds. Frey 1991 Mendocino Pinot Noir was the favorite, followed by reds from Konrad, Bellerose and Valley Reserve. For more information, call The Organic Grapes Into Wine Alliance at (800) 477-0167 or your local wine store.

Some local vendors that carry Frey are Best Buy in Camarillo, Mande’s in Ventura, Pat’s Liquor in Ojai and Conejo Wine and Spirits in Newbury Park.

Happy holidays.