The web is littered with green holiday gift guides, tree-shopping advice, and other eco-holiday Christmas tips during these countdown days. Still at a loss for what to wrap? Plenty Magazine shares, "How to regift and get away with it." Green Light magazine steers you clear of "10 Earth Nasty" no-no gifts.
Why not boycott commercialized Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Chrismahanukwanzakah, Chrismukkah, Festivus, and Jewmas altogether? Don't wrap anything for those holidays. Instead, give a New Year's Nothing. By this, I mean giving someone a humanitarian gift, one that gives a new start to someone else. Write a card to announce that the $20 that would have gone toward another pair of gloves instead helped to buy a village doctor a bicycle. By imposing philanthropy upon your giftee, you're spared from dealing with bows and ribbons, and the giftee is spared closet space.
Start with the Alternative Gifts International catalog (via Two Steps Forward). This site hooks you up with all sorts of ways to help people around the world, such as $20 to get a family a solar water cooker. You could pitch in for a microloan via Kiva, which will return the money eventually to your giftee's delight.
Or try the National Resources Defense Council and North Carolina Conservation Network, which have suggest "living gifts" such as a $50 national parks pass or adopting a frog for $39. You can send city kids to camp. Donate a wireless gadget to Recycling for Charities, and they'll pass a buck to a nonprofit group. To give the bummer friend who drives a Hummer: a certificate from Drive Neutral or TerraPass that nullifies the car's ecological damage for a year.
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