Gold? Frankincense? Myrrh? What do you give for Christmas?
Silliness aside, what do you give for Christmas? Scrooges can harrumph that it’s hyper-commercialized, yes, but Christmas has always been that way. Done properly, there is a great joy in giving (and receiving) an actual material gift, but of course the economy and other consierations make it difficult to know what is the “proper” gift to give, or receive. Amid the ridiculous catalog avalanche the other day was one with interesting “earth-friendly” objets, many made in countries where they (hopefully) benefited native workers and subsidized indigenous crafts. But the catalog was so so slick and the items as expensive as Williams-Sonoma I wanted to gag. Books are of course always good–any in particular?–and the greatest gift of all, of course, is a Commonweal subscription for $39!
Donating to a worthy cause in someone’s name is virtuous, but a bit astringent for most of us arrested adolescents on Christmas morning. Any other serious, engaged, thoughtful practices and traditions out there?
PS: Gold would have been a great gift a couple years ago. It’s doubled in price, I think. Not sure what one does with myrrh.
When people go all Alasdair MacIntyre or Wendell Berry on me, complaining about the modern age and consumerism, I point to this:
http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/
I think the ipod shuffle is the most wondrous piece of fun technology out there.
And it’s only $49
I have a pink one.
Good on you, CK. And Benedict has a Nano. In white, natch. I must say the iPhone, much as I’d like to hate it, is a remarkable thing. Could almost make me convert to Appleism.
David,
Here is a unique affordable gift which is a plant but not myrrh that I give to my friends, family and students who enjoy plants, nature or gardening. A TickleMe Plant!
Ever see a plant move when you tickle it? The TickleMe Plant grows year round indoors, closes its leaves and lowers its branches when it is tickled. It is an easy flowering plant to grow in its own TickleMe Plant Greenhouse. When I first saw it move I was startled and amazed. You’ll love seeing the big smile on the face of the person who sees the plant move for the first time!
Visit http://www.ticklemeplant.com for a greenhouse to grow your own TickleMe Plant, more information and videos of the live plant.
For those who have a broadband connection and a centrally located computer with good sound, I recommend Rhapsody, a music service that costs just $12.99 a month. It has just about all the music you could ask for. I’ve bought only a couple of CDs since I started my subscription, so if you are a CD buyer, you will save money. If you look at the top-selling artists and albums, it’s all rock and hip-hop. But it is also very strong on classical music, old standards, and opera, including a great many classic recordings from the Metropolitan Opera.
There are a few drawbacks. It is poorly indexed, so it can be hard to find things. Lyrics to some of the current songs, especially rap and hip-hop, are “explicit.”
If you listen at your computer, the monthly $12.99 charge is all you pay. You can buy the music if you want, as you would on iTunes, if you want to put it on your iPod or other MP3 player. Or if you want to buy a special MP3 player equipped with digital-rights management, for an extra $2 a month you get Rhapsody-to-Go, which allows you to “rent” music and download it to the MP3 player. You must periodically connect the MP3 player to the computer (maybe about once a month) or the music on it expires.
I don’t own stock in the company or anything. I am just a very satisfied subscriber.
This might be a little too Wendell Berry, but what about gift certificates to local restaurants?
Chicago has a company that runs “ghost tours” of haunted chicago, and also great architectural tours, both of which offer gift certificates.
This is a somewhat selfish post of course, as I don’t really need stuff, but I always enjoy someone else paying for me to do stuff.
http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
For virtuous gifts (that are still actual gifts), I’m a fan of Handcrafting Justice (http://www.handcraftingjustice.org). It’s a project of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd: they sell items made by women in developing countries, in an attempt to promote economic justice. The cause is good (and Catholic!), and the products are, too — I particularly like their toys and things for children. The Noah’s Ark playset is even cuter in person.
Donating to a worthy cause in someone’s name is virtuous, but a bit astringent for most of us arrested adolescents on Christmas morning.
While on the one hand I am in agreement, on the other hand, WorldVision has a program that is so cool that I think kids (or adult kids like myself) would appreciate at least one of their gifts being a donation through their gift catalog. You can give a goat ($75), ducks (2 for $12 or 5 for $30), a llama ($70), chickens, donkeys, sheep, alpacas, a dairy cow ($500), and so on. It’s the animals that intrigue me, but there are many other things you can give, such as a deep well ($18,000), toys for children, and money for microfinancing.
I spoke with a representative, and she said if you donate $75 for a goat, somebody gets a goat. I asked what happened if too many people donated for goats, and she said the money goes into a goat fund, and it will be used to buy goats when they are needed. Many charities say things like, “$100 will buy enough hospital (or baby formula, or whatever),” but you can’t really target what your money goes to buy. I am not saying those aren’t worthy charities (in fact, my favorite charity, Doctors without Borders, falls into that category). But WorldVision actually allows you to pick what you want to give. It would make me very happy to know that somebody gave $75 in my name and that someone (or some family) somewhere in the world was actually getting a goat because of that.
Thanks for these ideas, which are very good. I like the idea of doing a WorldVision “astringent” thing and then a “matching grant” gift of something to the person. But it gets pricey, esp this year.
I probably shouldn’t but I can’t resist posting this, via Christianity Today’s blog, about Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s holiday idea–a gift certificate for an abortion!
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/12/abortion-indian.html
Well, for other things, too, but still. What would Tiny Tim say?!
I was about to post the link to AdventConspiracy, but I see Jason has already got that covered. (I admit to being a big fan of both Alasdair MacIntyre and Wendell Berry.)
We’ve been doing gifts similar to the World Vision program for a couple of years now. When it’s for kids, I’m not opposed to also buying them a little stuffed animal of the animal that is given as a way of helping them understand the gift.
I’m also a big fan of making a gift of one’s time and talents. My younger brother, who is a gifted musician, is going visiting my house once a week during Advent to play and sing Advent songs with my kids as his Christmas gift to them. They are getting more joy from this than probably anything he could buy them.
When it’s for kids, I’m not opposed to also buying them a little stuffed animal of the animal that is given as a way of helping them understand the gift.
That’s a good idea — I recently bought a “gift adoption” of a polar bear for my polar-bear-loving nephew. He gets the general idea of the gift, but having his own stuffed bear to take care of makes it especially meaningful. This was through WWF.org, by the way — if ecological conservation is your thing, their gift-adoption options are amazingly broad, and the stuffed animals are awfully cute. (Except for the vampire bat.) But they do work on the model David Nickol described above, where your donation is only symbolically “directed”; they use the money however they see fit. And from what I understand, Heifer International operates the same way. So I guess it comes down to how much you trust the prudential judgment of your charitable organizers!
P.S. David Gibson — you had to go and bring up abortion, didn’t you?!
There are many good ideas that have been mentioned, but before giving to any particular charity, it might be worthwhile to check out the charity with Charity Navigator, an independent charity evaluator that compiles financial information about charities. Charity Navigator also has some sensible tips for those thinking about holiday donations:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=822
If you spend some time clicking around, you’ll also see that Charity Navigator’s highest rated social services charity is Catholic Charities USA, based in Alexandria, VA, which has admin expenses of only about 5% (thus passing along 95% of every donated dollar to charitable work). Speaking only for myself, I try to donate to only those charities that have admin expenses of 10% or less.
As to David G’s uncertainty about myrrh as a gift. Who doesn’t immediately think of myrrh when the gift-giving occasion cries out for embalming ointment, incense, or the prevention and treatment of gum disease (via mouthwash or toothpaste)? I know I always do.
Adopting a polar bear reminds me . . . What ever happened to buying pagan babies? They used to be only $5, but I am sure they have gone up. When I was in the second or third grade, I donated $2 toward the purchase of a pagan baby, and our teacher insisted that I be the one to give him a name. Christopher was my favorite name at the time, and I wanted to name him Christopher David, but the nun cajoled me into naming him David Christopher.
If there is a pagan out there named David Christopher in your early to mid fifties, please e-mail me and tell me how you are doing.
Mollie: In the spirit of artisan work, I offer a link to a site of an organization that I am very glad to have in my area:
http://www.visitsvcenter.com/crafts.html
An office of the Diocese of Charlotte helped provide a start-up grant for this project. I am very glad that the diocese was able to offer a helping hand.
I realized one Christmas that gift-giving was largely a matter of exchanging checks in cards because everyone hated shopping. So I suggested that nobody over 18 gets a gift, and that idea was taken up enthusiastically.
In lieu of a gift, my kid makes us breakfast on Christmas morning.
Times are tough in Michigan, so our charitable giving has been local–foodbank, kitties for families struggling to pay for catastrophic illnesses, Methodist Ladies who do Christmas dinner for elderly and shut-ins.
Re: myrrh: my understanding is that it’s a sweet resin used, among other things, for burials. I”m sending a jar of it to all my Republican friends this year :-)
How about some historic papal cologne? No myrrh, but “notes of violet and citrus.”
http://www.thepopescologne.com