The Joy of Giving … to Strangers

I have a colleague whose family has done something rather remarkable to help get them out of that crazy holiday shopping rush and help others while they are at it. She has a big family so she had to shop for 21 immediate family members as well as her own children, husband, friends and co-workers. It was a huge chore for the whole family and eventually deteriorated into an exchange of impersonal gift cards. But one year they decided it had to change. The whole spirit of the holidays felt lost to them.

First thing they did was change it so each person only bought for one other person in the family. That way what was bought could be more unique and special. But the really cool thing was they reduced their spending on each other to a fraction of what it had been and took the rest of their budget and spent it on complete strangers. They have charities in most cities that arrange things so you can buy for an entire family who is too impoverished to afford a real holiday. So now my colleague’s family goes shopping for others, buying clothes, toys, and a grocery gift card so their ‘adopted’ family can have something to open Christmas day and enjoy a special holiday meal. It gives them all such a great feeling to be giving to those who could use the gifts so much more than them and the young people in the family get to really experience the giving nature of the season and have come to love it. I thought that was just super.

For those of us fortunate enough, the gifts we get this season will often be expected–obligatory, picked from a provided list, or bought with a random guess. And that’s because when we have so much to do and so many people on our gift lists we just don’t have the time to make it special for each and every person. It’s still the thought that counts but what if you could make a few of the gifts be so special that they will be remembered for years? What if we all took a little of our gift budget and gave it to people that don’t expect anything of us? It doesn’t have to be a whole family; it could just be one person. That widow that lives down the street, the new employee at work that hasn’t really gotten to know anyone yet, a lonely soul at a nursing home, children at an orphanage, or an old friend you haven’t contacted in years. Wouldn’t that be something?