Trying to minimize corporate profit from holiday shopping, maximize the spirit of the season.

[LuckyLib]

A few suggestions for thinking in new ways about gift-giving:
1. Give gifts for the soul: books, music, photographs, art (a child’s or teen’s art or ceramic for a special friend or relative), a class at the local writer’s center.
2. Give gifts for the body: a massage, ice-skating or yoga lessons, bicycle maps for your community.
3. Give gifts that are consumable: Soaps, special olive oil, a plant, home-baked bread, home-made jam, a plate of fudge with your Mom’s recipe.
4. Give gifts that are sentimental: a favorite old book, a keepsake from the past, a piece of treasured jewelry, an old tool that’s been in the family. One Christmas my Dad took an entire bundle of letters he had written to his family over a period of 15 years. The early letters were sent back to Ohio when he was 18, on his own with no money during the Depression. He had hitchhiked across the country, hoping to find work in Seattle. He made four sets of the letters, putting them into a notebook for each of his adult children. These beautiful letters are a treasure of history and culture, a peek at Dad we wouldn’t have otherwise.
5. Give the gift of time: a walk with an elderly neighbor, child-care for your cousin, reading stories at the library, a phone call to an old friend you have lost touch with.
6. When shopping locally, think creatively: artists and craftspersons in your community provide many choices for excellent gifts – you are keeping your money “at home” and supporting your neighbors.
7. Shop with sustainability in mind:
http://www.slf.org.au/directory/index.php?page=tipsTools
http://www.sustlife.com/br4up/ASustlife/Mall.htm
8. Shop globally: projects that support the working efforts of our neighbors to develop viable income sources can work on several levels at once, contributing to relieving global poverty and hunger. One example is Heifer International, providing animals for communities, “meaningful gifts of hope that help struggling families worldwide become more self-reliant”: http://www.heifer.org

[Union Thug]

1. My 13 year old niece asked for a Children International sponsorship.

Great kid! This is a gift that I'm happy to give!

[grilled onions]

2. A Great List

One should think "landfill". Will it end up in the landfill? Will the gift be contained in huge amounts of plastic,cardboard and other wasteful materials? Will the toy be broke in a week and again end up in a landfill? Few toys today can be repaired and it's crazy to buy it the second time. Aim for gifts that can be "given" again and again. A book "gift' to a senior center can be read all year long by many residents. If you have artsy talent a small watercolor painting,for example, can add so much to someone who lives alone. A gift card may seem kind of dull for many because they have so much but such a gift to someone with so little will give them the joy of picking things they might never be able to get otherwise. Shelters,human and animal can always use volunteer hours and they always have a list of items that can be utilized immediately.
It's not how much you give but what you give that counts!