Heather Anne Hogan warms my supposedly scrooge-ish heart by putting the freeze on holiday consumerism through making Christmas charitable.
I love giving gifts, but I’ve never been comfortable receiving them. There isn’t much that i need or want – I work for a living and manage my budget, rewarding myself conservatively but appropriately throughout the year. I don’t like to rely on receiving gifts to fulfill my desires, and anything I don’t already have is probably exorbitant, anyhow. Correspondingly, I don’t like the pressure of seasonal wish fulfillment for the people that are important to me.
This means I’m typically unexcited by Christmas and the rush of holiday shopping that accompanies it. Every conversation from Thanksgiving forward seems to be about exchanging large sums of money for consumer goods, and if you look closely you can see me twitch with every additional shopping destination that’s rattled off. It just makes me uncomfortable.
Instead of just shutting out the materialism of the season (as i am prone to do), Heather Anne Hogan is transforming it. She sent a memo to her entire family that her Christmas giving-and-getting cycle was being devoted entirely to charity.
Her idea really struck a chord with me. A few years ago my boss at the time made a donation in my name as a Christmas present. I hadn’t ever received a donation before, and was honestly flattered and touched by the idea.
Last year my mother and I reciprocated donation-gifts when she bought me a flock of chickens and i bought her education for a year. Except my gift was deployed in Africa, and hers in South America. We bought other things too – gadgets and movies and socks – but the former pair were the gifts i wound up gabbing about all year.
I feel quite merry in announcing that I no longer want to be a consumer for Christmas. I haven’t started shopping yet, and now I think I’ll be making customized donations instead. Since in some cases it’s too late to intercept gifts bought for me, for every pricey gift I receive I’m going to write a thank you card requesting that the giver make a donation in 2007, or write me a check so i can do so on their behalf.
If you happen to be planning on buying me anything more expensive than a card this year, please consider contributing a philanthropic gift instead. You can still tell me all about the cool gift you thought of – maybe we can go shopping for it together!
Cool People Care offers a press release to get you started: “Christmas Is Not Your Birthday” (unless you are Jesus, Jimmy Buffet, or my dad). Afterwards, World Vision offers some great ideas, as does the more recognizable Heifer International, and the more local Donor’s Choose. Also, Water is Basic.
Bravo! This has been our tradition (mine and my husband’s) for a few years now. We sent out a letter the first year describing how thankful we felt for all the people and things we already have in our lives. My husband’s side of the family thought we were crazy and didn’t know quite how to deal with the situation. My side of the family thought it was great, made donations in our names, AND bought us gifts. It’s taken a few years, but everyone’s more or less come to terms with it. It feels great not to shop like crazy for the “perfect gifts,” but it feels even better to help people who really need it.
Thanks for the kind words about Heifer International. I joined Heifer as new media director last year and really appreciate it when someone blogs about us.
We have a new BlogRaising program that lets bloggers like you help us get the word out about Heifer and raise the money we need to do our work. To learn more, just go to http://www.heifer.org/onlinecommunityfundraising
I hope you are able to take part.
Again thanks for the good words.
I have a close knit group of friends and we all have young children. We get together for a gift exchange every year and draw names for each child. This year, we are still going to buy gifts for the children but each child will be bringing money from their piggy banks for Heifer International and a gently used toy to donate to the local crisis nursery. I hope to do more of this with our kids in the future.