Giving not just on Christmas

Like it or not, ’tis the season for giving (and yes, for forgiving)! Of course, the season of giving started rather early this year because of the recent calamities that hit the country. The worst of times certainly brought out the best in a lot of us. Amid the crass commercialism of the times, the spirit of Christmas is alive in our hearts and we’re giving Christ back to Christmas.

Christmas trivia: Along with tons of material presents and food gifts — if I may add, I’ve only received one fruitcake so far (donde esta fruitcake, which was the standard gift and the most “recycled”one, too, some Christmases ago?) — I got some cards saying that a donation to some charity has been made in my name. Great!

So, while we’re in the giving mood, health activist Dr. Joseph Mercola has come up with some prescriptions for us to keep in mind not just this Christmas, but the whole year through:

1. People need your help year-round. Look around, there are people who may need your help — sick kids in hospitals, children in battered women’s shelters who have fled their homes in the middle of the night, the homeless, disabled, ill, poor, and otherwise hurting people who need help year-round.

2. The recipients of charity are people with feelings, value, and dignity. Poor people don’t need the dregs of your life, whether in the form of your material cast-offs, or your time, emotion, and advice. Being poor means lacking resources, not lacking humanity — if you can’t connect with the people you aim to serve, as people, then nobody is the better for your alleged charity.

3. Consider the gift of autonomy. One of the resources most lacking for impoverished people is autonomy. The greatest hardship of poverty is the way it limits you — often in ways that create greater poverty, like the way stores in poor neighborhoods often charge higher prices than stores in better-off neighborhood, because the poor often lack the transportation options to make meaningful choices about where they shop.

Think about the way you volunteer or give charity — is there a way you could increase people’s abilities to make their own choices, to follow their own paths, to develop their own abilities?

4. Connect and commit. Too often, people in a position to help hold themselves back from the people they hope to assist. And no wonder — for the once-a-year volunteer, there is little time to get to know anyone, let alone really understand what their lives are like. If you can, make a long-term commitment and open yourself up to the lives of the people your charity is aimed at. Get to know people face-to-face, as friends, colleagues, and equals.

5. Forget you. Last but most important, remember, it’s not about you. Yes, it feels good to give, and there’s no point in feeling guilty about that, but don’t do it because it makes you feel good, or because you earn points towards a merit badge or college credit, or because it’s part of your organization’s charter, or for whatever other way that charity benefits you. Do it because you must, because being a giving person is right.

And this year, instead of giving during the season of giving and then returning to your “normal life” when you pack away your Christmas tree and lights, let the holidays be a starting point to a life of year-round giving.

Let the spirit of Christmas burn in your heart forever.

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Christmas wrap-up

’Tis the season, too, when our garbage seems to multiply a hundredfold.

Loriee Evans of Conscious Choice writes that according to the Use Less Stuff Report (ULS), a bi-monthly newsletter on waste reduction, if every household would reuse just two feet of ribbon each year, the resulting 38,000 miles of ribbon could tie a bow around the earth.

Says Bob Lilienfeld, editor of the ULS Report, “Little kids just want to get to what’s inside the paper. They don’t sit and look at bows or count the sheets of wrapping paper you used.”

So, why really bother? The time you spend wrapping your presents can otherwise be used spending time with your loved ones or even enjoying another precious hour of sleep.

So, why not wrap your gifts in “green”? Evans lists some down-to-earth ways you can wrap your gifts that will reduce your impact on the planet this season:

• Festive paper wrappings don’t just come in shiny red rolls. If you buy fresh flowers for your house, you can use the paper or brightly-colored tissue protecting the blooms to wrap up your gifts.

• Got old maps from your travel materials that you won’t use again? These large sheets are just the right size for wrapping books, small shirt boxes, ties, and other medium-sized gifts. And speaking of shirt boxes, simply stuff clothing into a shopping bag. You save on the freshly-minted paperboard — which, of course, is both reusable and recyclable if you receive a few new outfits in those department store boxes yourself.

• With the year almost over, give your old calendars, especially those with colorful photos, a new life by using them to wrap small gifts. For more photos, try old magazines which are recyclable, unlike most paper gift wrappers. You can match photos to the recipient’s interests, like shots of anglers from an outdoor magazine for an avid fisherman or pictures of baked goodies for a cook.

• Head for the refrigerator. See those works of youthful art plastered on the ref door? Have the kids wrap their gifts to grandma and grandpa with their own artwork.

• Or wrap gifts in paper grocery sacks, and let the kids unleash their creative juices with their own designs. With scissors, tape or glue, scraps of Christmas wrapping paper, recycled ribbons, pictures from old holiday magazines, and a dash of imagination, you can come up with a really original holiday gift bag that your gift recipient would love to get as much as your gift.

• If you’ve run out of bags, use the same creativity on the shoeboxes. On top of the box, you can add some touches of holly branches, red berries, pinecones, cedar sprigs, etc. A glue gun works wonders for adhering twigs to a box top, but good old Elmer’s suffices in a pinch.

• No more shoeboxes? Don’t feel shoe bad. Cloth bags also make handy reusable holiday packaging.

• Got some old baskets? Simply crinkle a little tissue paper on top of the gift and tie a bit of ribbon on the handle.

• For teeny-weeny gifts, how about using those chipped holiday mugs in the kitchen?

So, still wrapping your presents and checking your list twice? There’s one priceless gift you can give — the gift of time. With so many distractions today and our hectic lifestyle, spending time with our loved ones is fast going out of style. Cop out of that “important meeting” or party and find time for family. Make it a year-round habit, too.

Now, this gift needs no wrapping and it’s very environment-friendly.

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