All I want for Christmas

I like it. When i was a child, i was told that people should give 15% of their disposable income to charity, if they could afford to donate at all. This was alleged to be the standard of "old money." I think that standard has slipped in recent decades. I think it's a very sensible idea. You're clever, and i hope your friends respond.

sounds great, may i suggest the "djjd62 needs a PS3" foundation as your family and friends first charitable cause

but seriously great idea, for my moms 70th birthday, a friend organized a campaign for everyone to buy kids book for a local reading initiative called "A Book Of My Own", a group that gives out books through library programs (mom was a teacher and is an avid reader)

Love it! Bear and I were talking last week about donating food to the local food bank instead of gifts to each other.

I have a list of needs that consists of three or four things under $10 in case the kids insist on getting me something (we haven't fully converted them yet to "it's enough that we are together Christmas day.")

I prefer thoughtful, homemade gifts if one insists on giving me something. Edible is a bonus!! But, my preference is that everyone just know that I know and value our relationship and one doesn't have to give me something to prove my valuation is accurate.

I agree. I'm much more concerned about sustaining relationships. Gift giving on demand doesn't really do much but add stress.

I also understand that in this economy charitable giving is way down.

I'll pass the word

Yep.

I'm doing a donation in honor of my mom to a local (to her) homeless shelter. This was by request (I have a list of charities she favors).

Much less gift-giving this year and I'm fairly happy about it. It's a pretty good balance I think. I dislike giving gifts to people whose taste I don't really know (like far-flung relatives who I rarely see) but I also think that it's fun to give gifts to actual known and loved friends and family and wouldn't want to jettison that completely. Some just had a lot of thought put into them, some are hand-made.

In our family we only give gifts to the kids. Unless your enrolled full time in college you end up off the holiday shopping lists when you graduate from high school.

We have a couple of charities that we support all year long and we donate building supplies to a homeless encampment on a regular basis so giving doesn't seem like much of a gift to give to someone.

One year we bought chickens and bees through Heifer International as gifts for two of our little nieces. That thought that was awesome even though they themselves didn't get the chickens and bees.

(www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.6452475/?utm_source=Heifer_Gift_Catalog&utm_medium=Webpage&utm_content=Website_Optimizer&utm_campaign=View_Full_Catalog?msource=kw2792&gclid=CJaJ_8Kk8aUCFQEGbAodomcFoA)

Speaking of kids. I adopted a gray wolf for my grandbaby.

That sounds cool . . . what does it entail?

http://www.worldwildlife.org/ogc/index.cfm?sc=AWY1106WC161&button1&enews=101216c

Lots of species to choose from.

Cool, Boss . . . thanks . . .

Cool, boomer. I feel like a late comer to this idea, but better late than never.

Here's a site that a friend told me about that links to all kinds of charities.

https://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/store/categoryjson.do?siteId=220&categoryId=253&sort=Most%20Popular

It feels good, doesn't it?

I think the local food bank is an excellent suggestion.

What was Mom's reaction?

Are you hosting some kind of get together?

I have a friend who hosts a lovely Christmas party each year. She has a whole closet full of "hostess gifts" and didn't want any more but knew that people hate to come empty handed. She now asks people to bring a bag of pet food to donate to the shelter.

Everybody loves it!

Yep!

We also do Heifer Int'l, World Wildlife Fund, Second Harvest food bank, HeatShare, Project for Pride in Living, Planned Parenthood, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Amnesty International and more local ones I'm forgetting (my husband does donations every year through work).

So? How did it go?