The average American will spend $700 on gifts, gadgets, and goodies for Christmas.
Whether you budget for it or splurge purchase, how will your purchases reflect the core of who you are? How can you share your faith through meaningful spending?
Alternative Christmas Gifts
Buy gifts from sustainable organizations like Global Goods (changing women’s lives through handmade businesses) or Amazima (handcrafted jewelry from Uganda)
Buy local. Seek out local crafters. My neighbor is a potter, my nephew is a metal manufacturer. Visit Kickstarter and fund a creative innovator. Purchase homemade and vintage from Etsy (sweet spiral earrings!)
Donate to an organization that is contributing to the development of a community. Chicks for Every Orphan’s Hope, a cow for the Heifer Project, water pump for World Vision, education and weekend food snacks for children through Centreville Presbyterian Church.
Invest in microfinancing in the name of your friend or family member. Finance a loan through Opportunity International for a Kenyan woman to purchase a sewing machine to enhance her dressmaking enterprise or Kiva to allow a young man to open a fruit stand in Mozambique or a single mom to start a bakery in Bolivia.
Make a monetary donation to your church or a trusted charity in your family member’s name. The organization will likely mail a card letting them know how they were honored.
Remain focused on who you are even amidst the craziness of the Christmas shopping!
What alternative gift giving are you doing this season?
Posted by Sharon R. Hoover
Photo Credit: Let Ideas Compete via photopin cc
