Charity- this year's Christmas gift!

Purchasing Christmas gifts is for many people related to stress and anxiety. There will always be people who seem to have everything and knowing what to give to these people is always an issue. In lack of inspiration is it easy to give away another tie, even though that has been a pattern of the last ten years. This year everyone should skip the ties and give something away that actually means something. Therefore charity should be this years Christmas gift.

In defiance of the recession, the Christmas trade increases and people spend more money with every year that passes. The average Christmas gift in Sweden costs between 100 and 499 Swedish crowns. 100 crowns is enough money to support a child in Vietnam for a month, saving 100 trees in the rainforest or adopting a tiger. These gifts make an important difference in the long-run. In contrary to a materialistic object which will in all probability be thrown out even before the Christmas tree.

The Christmas trade contributes to a vast waste of our environment and the climate. The gifts we are buying are produced with immense energy and are often transported long distances which contribute to the greenhouse effect. These noxious effects are unnecessary and by giving charity away one does not contribute.

Finding the right gift is time consuming, running around town the days before Christmas looking for gifts strains on ones nerves. Giving charity away is easy. It can be done within two minutes over the net. The surplus of time that otherwise would be spent looking for gifts can instead be spent with loved ones which is, after all, what Christmas is really about.

It might be considered boring and impersonal to give to charity and the younger generation will almost certainly not appreciate a piece of paper that represents a gift to charity rather than the latest toy. Moreover, our consumer driven society relies heavily on the Christmas trade for much of its business and people are generally expectant of material goods as gifts at this time. However, there are immense selections of different charitable purposes one can choose from. Giving a tree to a garden loving husband or a cuddly tiger that represents an adopted tiger somewhere in Africa to a nephew is very personal and original. People’s attitudes to gift giving will need to be changed if giving to charity is to become accepted. This is not impossibility; this can be done through raised awareness among people.

This year everyone should skip long queues, stress and badly thought-out Christmas gifts. Instead everyone should strike a blow for humanity and the environment by making charity this year’s Christmas gift.