I love that there’s a real, tangible movement these days to open hearts and exchange some of the materialism of the Christmas season for a greater sense of charity. Of course there is an annual lament for the way the holiday gets branded into oblivion and how red and green department store decorations show up before Halloween candy is even stocked, but there’s a nice, attention grabbing celebrity movement encouraging us to give charitably this year.
Redefine Christmas (also connected to Just Give and Changing the Present: The Thought That Counts) not only brings us video and audio messages from stars encouraging us to ask family and friends to replace at least one gift they might normally purchase for us with, instead, a donation to a charity…there are also user-friendly ways to do just that from the website(s). Send an electronic message/card suggesting the idea to your loved ones, look for your favorite charity or cause or peruse the databanks to find a new passion, and easily spread the word via social networking. Encouragement comes from the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Martha Stewart, Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Jessica Biel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harry Connick Jr., and more.
You may be wrapping up (literally) the last of your shopping, however…one less gift under your own tree may not make much of a difference in your living room, but can completely shift the world for another.
Change by Doing 