Friday, December 04, 2009

Holiday Gift Idea

I've tried unsuccessfully for years to get my family to stop buying Christmas presents. I like getting together with everybody, but the whole commercialized, gift thing makes it stressful!

In the case of children, that's different. Kids love Christmas presents!

For the rest of us, unless we want to "break the bank" buying nice, expensive gifts, most people don't need that $10 or $20 gift. They can just buy it themselves!

I used to give gift cards for dinner at a nice restaurant. Then, I realized that there were potential problems with this as these cards might have time limits, etc. Even more reason to be careful with gift cards, is the number of establishments that are going out-of-business! Buy a card from one of these places, and your recipient may end up with nothing!

So last year, I decided to give to charities in the names of my family members. In fact, last year money was donated in my name to charity as well! We started a nice trend I think.

So if you want to do some good and make Christmas shopping easier, give to charities in the names of the people you would normally buy presents for. Just tell the charities (very specifically) what you want (i.e. receipt, gift card/acknowledgment).

And for any charities out there, if someone wants to donate instead of buying Christmas presents, make sure to promptly address these requests, or you may not get the donation next year.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

-KJC

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