When it comes to holiday gift giving, I'm sort of like that neighbor that hands out apples during Halloween...at least it's not pennies. Three years ago, I got each of my family members a subscription to greendimes.com, a company that works to decrease your junk mail/catalogs/etc...greendimes.com is now precycle.tonic.com. Last year, I gave my family Kiva.org gift certificates to loan money to entrepreneurs in mostly second and third world countries. And this year, I'm planting trees in honor of each one of them through Friends of the Urban Forest. My nieces and nephews have plenty of toys, and rather than add one more forgettable toy to the existing pile, I want to teach them about charity and philanthropy. I have this whimsical scene in my head where my siblings show their children the certificates for a loan or to plant a tree, and this in turn sparks this wonderful dialog and life lesson between parent and child. I have no idea what actually plays out when the knee-biters open their gifts, but I'll just stick with this thought. I think I can get away with this for another 4-5 years, because once they are in middle school, gifts like these will most likely illicit the "LAAAAAME" response. Happy gift giving this year.You still have 11 days to send Bree your shoes and/or a wrapped shoe box filled with goodies for a boy or girl for her Spreading Aloha to the Marshallese Project.
*Yippie: A yuppie hippie.
4 comments:
Such awesome gifts Kiet!! I want to do this every year for my family but I fear the backlash...although they would probably appreciate it deep down. :)
Kiet - I LOVE your gift giving ideas. I think it's fantastic, and I highly doubt that even when those knee-biters reach middle school that they will consider your gift to them as "llllaaaammmeee". I bet at that point it will probably be something WAY more to them and that they will feel very proud to be a part of. The world needs more people like you in it. We are starting to do the gift giving with our lil midget, where he picks something and takes it to one of the places that collect toys to give to other kids. It all counts in this great big world of ours.
Happy Holidays Mr!
So creative and thoughtful. I love Friends of Urban Forest and will happily borrow your idea for all my xmas gifts this year. Thanks!
that's awesome kiet! seriously. even if they don't have the best response when opening it, you are planting a seed in their head that will grow for a lifetime. hmmmm.... maybe I need to do that with my nephews. I think they would be confused where the real gift is though!
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