The vitriol is not about donations.
Pretty sure that’s also tax fraud.
I’ve heard through the family grapevine that my mother is doing this for all her children this year. Apparently some family, somewhere in the world, is getting a goddamn sheep in my name this year.
I so fucking well blame you people for somehow putting her up to this.
Cite?
How does that make you “cheap”?
Anything that drives us further from the concept of holiday gift giving is fine by me.
I don’t particularly like giving or receiving gifts. If I want something I’ll buy it. If you buy me something for £20 and I feel obliged to reciprocate then exactly where does that leave us? Both £20 poorer and with only a slim chance that gift we got is what I would actually choose to buy with my own money (which is, in effect, what I’ve done)
Sod that,
I severely limit the toys bought for my two little ones as well because they already have far more then they can give brain-space to. We set a budget of £150 for both of them together and that seems perfectly adequate (and to be honest this year we are pushed to think of what to get them, given that they already have so much crap).
If the whole world decided “no more holiday gifts and and we all donate to charities of our choice” then I’d be very happy indeed.
Yes, this is the best way to do it IMO.
The kid needs to have a personal connection to the giving, and it needs to be meaningful to them. My son puts away (at our suggestion) a portion of his allowance for charity. Then it is up to HIM as to where he donates. When he was young, he donated to “fuzzy animal” funds. This year he introduced us to KIVA, and did a micro-loan of $25 to a person in Africa.
He picked the charity, he gets the nice feeling.
I’ve done the Heifer thing, but not for children.
The reason this is considered such a good charity is, in case you’re unaware, when you buy a mating pair of say, ducks, they are given to a needy family along with animal husbandry lessons until they have a flock (to feed their children, and some to sell enabling their children to go to school, etc.)
Once their flock is established, the recipient of the gift is obligated to present a breeding pair and animal husbandry education to another family in her community. Bees, goats, sheep, ducks, it all works the same way. That recipient is obligated in the same way.
So it is a little more than just a one off gift. Just thought I’d point that out, in case you didn’t know.
Like I said- you buy a gift for yourself, then tell me that is my gift.
It is marginal. If you made the “gift” a cash or MO to your gifted, with the understanding but not a requirement that it be used for a donation, then fine.
Maybe. But not necessarily. I think most people wouldn’t have spent the money if it wasn’t for a gift, and many probably pick something the recipient could appreciate.
I think it’s petty to disparage people for something like this. Christmas has fuck-all to do with gift giving anyway, so how a person decides to dole out the goods is up to him.
I can see people doing this because it just feels like a good thing to do. But that doesn’t make it any less stupid. Like, I’ve been thinking about MandaJo’s scholarship fund all day. I really don’t understand how someone would see the joy in such a “gift”.
No one is entitled to a gift–this much is a true. But people also don’t have to like the gifts they are “given” either.
“As God is my witness, I thought heifers could fly.”
To me, the available choices are these:
A. Not buy something for kids that have all they need and more.
B. Spend about three times what I would have spent on a gift if they didn’t already have everything they need on a charitable donation, on top of any and all other donations I make and “give the gift of giving”.
Disagree with it all you want, but cheap it ain’t.
I’ll just get my kid his own beehive, thank you.
If you don’t like the “gifts of hope”, perhaps we can interest you in the “feats of strength”?
Bill bought me a cow. He has also bought me litter boxes for Christmas and has donated heavily to my rescue group in my name. I thought that these were wonderful gifts because he talked to me about it we agreed that I’d like a cow more than I wanted some books.
The important part is that he talked to me about it. Had he sent money to a cause I didn’t support, it would be like getting a nicely wrapped iron.
Gifts are supposed to be something that makes the recipient happy, not the giver. Or at least, that’s how I feel. (and yes, I do feel happy when giving a gift, but I’m even happier when I get squeels of joy over it.)
I’m all for charity, and I am all for this rant. Giving donation “gifts” always felt like a bit of a backhanded insult to me. As if you are saying “I’m so thoughtful, I can even be thoughtful in your place!”
I have received donation gifts from Kiva, and that’s fun because you get the whole experience of picking out the loan, and if you decide to go scroogey one day, you can pull the money out and spend it on whatever you want.
I’ve also seen it done well on Wantful, which is a service where you pick 12 items at a certain pricepoint, they print out a really nice catalog of those 12 items, and your recipient chooses whichever one they want and it is shipped to them. Some of these “items” are donations. I think that’s a pretty cool way to do it, especially for people who have too much “stuff” and would appreciate a more ephemeral gift.
But the straight-up “in your place” gift? No, that’s a gift for you, not me. You get all the warm fuzzies. It’s not a gift. Frankly, charity should be a seamless part of life, something you do because that’s the right thing to do, not some crazy special event.
If each person simply received what they would have bought for themselves, I’d count that rather a shame. We should aim for better than that. Get me something I wouldn’t have found or thought to get for myself.
Mine can have a wasp nest and like it.