Frenzied sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become holiday shopping traditions. Both are about grabbing up deals before someone else gets them. Not much about the spirit of giving. Not fun either.
There are alternatives. They offer the satisfaction of exchanging wonderful presents while also shifting holiday gift-giving in a positive direction.
Here’s how.
Enjoy tradition or create new ones.
Some families choose to generate their own traditions that have little emphasis on gifts but are fun and meaningful. The children in one Florida family wake on Christmas morning to lollipop trees: dozens of lollipops and other tiny items tied by ribbon to tree branches in their yard. After scrambling to harvest from trees tagged with their names, the family heads the beach for a picnic with extended family before going home to play games. A Michigan family gives one main gift that benefits everyone, other gifts must either be handmade or repurposed. A German family has stopped loading up children with presents. Instead each family member creates clues for a scavenger hunt to find wrapped and hidden gifts. As the children have gotten older the clues and hiding places have become more elaborate. Instead of hiding gifts in the house, now gifts have been stashed at distances requiring hikes to reach them. For more inspiration, look into the following resources.
- Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season
- Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For A More Joyful Christmas
- Simple Pleasures for the Holidays
Make it yourself.
Overspending to show we care has gotten out of hand. American Consumer Credit Council reports the average American family has approximately $5,000 in credit card debt, but will spend $935 for holiday gifts. Longstanding movements against rampant materialism such as Buy Nothing Day and Buy Nothing Christmas ask us to consider a different approach. They advocate handmade gifts, gifts of service, and simple holiday togetherness as alternatives to spending.
For ideas, check out the following resources.
- 34 Homemade Gifts to Make Yourself
- Make It and Love It
- Craft Jr.
- FamilyFun Homemade Holidays
- Holiday Gifts Kids Can Make
- Instructables
Spend consciously.
Your spending choices have a powerful impact. One in four Americans is now identified as a consumer attracted to “goods and services focused on health, the environment, social justice, personal development, and sustainable living.” These consumers are a 290 billion dollar market. Simply by purchase decisions, shoppers have forced industry to limit the use of BPA, avoid bovine growth hormone in dairy products, reduce packaging on all sorts of products, and make organics more widely available. We do vote with our dollars.
Each time you spend, you’re saying “yes” to the businesses and products your money supports. Choose who gets your “yes.” You can easily find out how big companies are rated in such areas as environmental responsibility, gender equality, and worker’s rights using the following resources.
- Knowmore is a web community sharing information about corporate responsibility with a searchable database for conscious consumers and activists.
- Crocodyl provides searchable profiles of corporations. This service, offered by CorpWatch.org, is based on extensive information provided by researchers, journalists and non-profit organizations.
- Environmental Working Group provides up-to-date reports for conscientious shoppers. Recent ratings include least polluting cars and safest personal care products.
- Center for a New American Dream offers detailed resources for making one’s own ethical choices, aimed at both adults and children.
- The Better World Shopping Guide: Every Dollar Makes a Difference
is a pocket reference grading companies in a range of sectors, from department stores to prepared foods.
- The Blue Pages, 2nd Edition: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices
Give gifts that support a non-profit.
When your buy a gift from a museum, house of worship, or any non-profit you know part of the purchase price helps to benefit that institution. It’s easy to find beautiful, useful, or just plain fun gifts that also do some good.
- Find gift ideas and sources here.
Donate
The holidays may inspire you to donate, particularly in the names of people important to you. It’s particularly meaningful when that gesture connects to what the recipient means to you. You can protect endangered land for someone who grounds you, donate baby chicks for your favorite chick pals, give the gift of vision for someone who helped you see in a new way. Let them know what they mean to you and why you chose that donation. Sometimes donation gifts don’t seem particularly festive when others are unwrapping presents. It’s easy to pair a donation with a small related gift. For someone who has sweetned your life, you might tie a gift tag on a jar of local honey, add a donation of bees and a beehive for new beekeepers in the developing world.
- Find more gift donations and pairing suggestions here.
- Make a donation to a local charity, arts organization, or other cause dear to the heart of your recipient.
- Consider a giving a certificate to a charity clearinghouse, allowing your gift recipient to choose his or her own causes.
- Give wisely. Before donating to any cause, check them out using Charity Navigator or Charity Watch.
Buy right in your community
When you do buy gifts, consider shifting your money to independently owned businesses. Research shows that only $13 of every $100 spent at a big box store stays in the community. But when you shop at a locally owned store, $45 of $100 remains to boost your area’s economy. Other studies have found somewhat different figures, but all indicate that supporting locally owned stores is a viable way to promote jobs and increase economic activity.
Don’t limit your local present-buying to something that will fit in a gift bag. Consider the following ideas.
- Give gift certificates from locally owned landscaping companies and greenhouses, restaurants and coffee shops, golf courses, skating rinks, city tours, and galleries.
- Give memberships to museums, theater companies, recreation centers, gyms, clubs, and art centers.
- Pay for a lesson or two in horseback riding, yoga, sculpture, glass blowing, tai chi, skiing, or whittling.
- Find a local worker who specializes in house cleaning, home repair, car repair, lawn mowing, driveway plowing, or plumbing, then pay for a few hours of his or her time in advance.
- Buy from area artists including potters, knitters, jewelry makers, calligraphers, woodworkers, and painters.
We try to say something with our gifts: I care about you, I’m thinking of you, I get you. We also say something about ourselves and our values with each choice we make. It’s possible to welcome the brightest possible future even through our holiday gift-giving choices. Are you making a shift?
I heard from Jessica at Verizon who suggests a gift that gives back and costs nothing. She says,
“One way to give a charitable gift during the holiday season is to simply donate your old wireless phone to help someone in need. HopeLine® from Verizon collects these phones, and phone accessories, and distributes them to participating domestic violence agencies and organizations nationwide. These phones are then provided to victims and survivors as they rebuild their lives; phones that cannot be reused are recycled properly, and charitable donations in the form of grants are provided to organizations that help victims of domestic violence.”
For more information on the HopeLine program, please visit http://www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline
Had an interblog discussion on this, passing along something I got from a blog friend: Support Your Local Business
Cimmy and I already have been the recipients of some of your suggestions: one ongoing gift of a gym membership came to us from my parents as I struggled through recovery from a spinal injury, which has been 2-3 years now. Then there were several helps from my father-in-law: custom-made computer desk, dining chairs, 2 stools, etc. Cimmy plans to make our next set of shelves herself.
We are starting to pay it forward: one year, my mother adored a cookie mix Cimmy made up for her, and I am willing to bet that probably this year it will be a batch of homemade instant oatmeal, or something like that. We have a decent amount of time (being on disability) to make and fix up things ourselves.