From your link:
Huh. I did that as a kid about that age. We were dirt-poor, so grew much of our food in our garden. Among other things, my job was to shoot, skin, and cook the rabbits that got into the garden. Once, I had to break a bunny’s neck to finish it off. I still ate it. It was delicious. While I’m not really feeling much sympathy for that kid, it is rather astonishingly dickish and cruel to do that in front of kids who didn’t grow up killing their own food.
I agree, if you both picked it out and agreed, then it can be a “gift”.
As an adult I can’t remember that ever happening, if it was something I needed I would have found it, if I don’t need it then what is the point?
You’re such a fucking Scrooge. “Baaaaah, humbug!”
I think I can get a few of those for you from my shed. I’ll send them to you for only $10 each, plus shipping… BTW, does anyone know if UPS accepts live wasps? I’ll tape it up really well.
:D[sup]2[/sup]
On a more relevant note:
One of the best Christmas gifts I’ve ever gotten was when I saw an infomercial for a cute kitchen gadget while at my parents’ house, and I said “that looks like fun, but not at that price!” My mother got it for me. IIRC, it was called “Salad Shooter”. It was fun. I used it for months before it inevitably died its cheap, crappy, ‘made in China’ death. I think that was Peremensoe’s point.
But my point is that if you feel obligated to reciprocate then you have bought it at “that” price anyway. If they expect no gift in return then yes, you are indeed in luck and ahead on the deal.
I just dropped $200 on charity gifts from these folks and I think your pitting is lame.
For starters, if you get a charity gift from me, it means you weren’t getting a christmas present anyway. None of my seven charity gifts are instead of a christmas present - they’re instead of a christmas card. And hey, you get a card as part of the whole shebang, so win-win!
Secondly, it doesn’t mean you don’t put any thought into it. All my cards are tailored to their recipient - my father in law who raises goats, is getting a goat, my midwife sister-in-law is getting a women and family’s health worker, and so on and so on. Our family rule is “no christmas presents to adults” (there’s seventeen of us round the table every year, and that’s just “kinda-nuclear” family, not counting the extended family gatherings which run to 40+ each) and this fits very nicely.
If you’ve gotten charity gifts you didn’t want, don’t pit the organisations who sell them. It’s just that your family and friends are rotten pickers. They probably would have got you socks as the second option.
Thanks, but it’s becoming a tradition to make a treasure hunt out of them finding it.
I’m with you.
I don’t stiff my kids out of gifts and give to charity instead, however. But grown ups, who have everything they really need and most affordable things they want? Those I stiff regularly for sheep. And my kids have never gotten too much (and somehow, they still always had too much to play with by the time Santa, Grandmas, Aunts, Uncles, Mom and Dad all gave gifts.) A charitable contribution is better than toe socks.
But, there’s no “gift” to the giftees. You bought yourself a gift, felt all noble and warm for doing a good deed, and now you want to brag about buying yourself a warm feeling in your card?
Indeed, you do “stiff” them, and that’s my point. I have no problem with not giving gifts. I have no problem with toe socks, even. And I have no problem with donations, in fact I think they are a nigh required part of civilized life.
But when you donate to a charity, you are not doing it for them, you are doing it for yourself. Donate all you want, but it is not a “gift”.
When you die, I’m sending a Hickory Farms sausage sampler to your funeral instead of making a donation to a charity.
My friends would say that is very appropriate.
I disgree. There are some people, and I happen to be one of them, that actually love the gift of a charitable donation made in their honor rather than a collectable nicknack or another sweater. It makes us feel happy that money is being used for a higher purpose than our brief pleasure during the holidays. I tell people to pick something through Alternative Gifts International, donate to Planned Parenthood or give to the local public library instead of gifting me during the holidays.
That’s fine. You are asking that a donation be made to a charity instead of getting you a gift. Good for you! A lot of money certainly does get wasted on gifts this time of year that could be much better spent on charitable donations.
The issue the OP is talking about is calling a donation to charity a gift to someone (yes, it’s a gift to the actual charity in question, but I’m referring to the person you are supposedly “giving” the “gift” to), particularly if the person you are giving the “gift” to did not tell you to make the donation to charity in place of a gift.
It’s not a question of not being charitable. It’s not a question of “screw those people in Africa, I want presents for me!”. It’s not a question of being a Scrooge. It’s simply a question of being honest about what it really is - a donation to charity instead of a gift.
One of my husband’s obscure relatives did this for our wedding. We got a card saying X had bought a goat or some other animal in our name.
We were baffled. Neither of us gives to global charities. We do local charities, mainly to animal shelters or Disaster of the Moment funds.
It didn’t feel like a gift, I didn’t feel warm or moved. I was confused mostly. We still laugh about it every time the organization sends -us- a card to donate. No thanks.
Even a gift card is more relevant and thoughtful.
Exactly. 
No, the donation is a gift. Gifts do not have to be something that materially or monetarily enricesh someone to be gifts or to be of great value. Making a donation in my honor contributes to my feeling of harmony and peace at the holidays. By giving them my family and friends choose to put aside their delight in shopping (and some of them are hard-core shopaholics) and spend the money they have set aside for spending on ZPG and using it in the manner most beloved to me. Their gift is choosing what I would like not what they would like me to have.
Exactly - they chose something appropriate to you, which is indeed a gift. If someone made a donation in your name to an adoption agency, that would not be a gift.
Ah, encouraging people to help the needy. Always pitworthy.
So what’s the thank you etiquette here? When someone donates $5 to the school scholarship fund in my name, am I supposed to write them a thank you note? Because that seems really odd to me 'Dear so-and-so. Thank you for the generous donation to the school scholarship fund in my name. When your child is applying for a scholarship from that same fund come April, I hope that the 500-word recommendation letter I spent an hour writing for them will come in handy. I am sure that that little extra money will really come in handy with all those college bills, and they worked hard and no doubt deserve it." Or a kid “Dear grandma. Thank you for giving a poor family a goat from me for Christmas. I am sure that they will really enjoy the milk and, someday, stew.” In writing the thank you, the person in the middle switches from being the proxy giver to the proxy receiver. It’s weird.
I guess what galls me here is it really seems like missing the point. YES, we give too many pointless gifts and too little to charity. If someone I knew were to announce 'This year we are not giving any gifts and donating what we would have spent on gifts to a selection of charities" I would applaud that. I would love–love–to see a campaign promoting that. “Don’t give Johnny another toy, give a poor family a goat” sounds great. “Don’t give Johnny a toy, give him a nominal role in a poor family getting a goat” doesn’t even make sense.