I’ve previously written up the idea of charitable giving at Christmas. It’s a bit late now I guess, but, in doing some reading around for next week’s column I came upon an Australia Institute paper (pdf) that I’d missed on Christmas giving. It gives a bunch of links to Christmas giving programs of various charities which I reproduce below. Bookmark it for next year!
CARE Australia
The Wilderness Society
Freecall 1800 030 641 and ask for the ‘In celebration’ package
Others may want to list other urls in the comments. And of course as the Australia Institute notes
It is, of course, perfectly possible to simply make a donation to your preferred charity and then create your own package of information to give the person or people to whom you would normally have given standard Christmas presents.
Our family has a Kris Kringle (which even includes the kids and reduces the number of unwanted gifts massively). We also each give some money to charity as a group. It’s a great ritual. Anecdotally the Kris Kringles seem to be spreading, but there seem to be more unwanted presents than ever.
I have taken to donating the money I would have spent on presents for dead relatives to charity at chrismas. Oxfam is a perenial favourite (and some of the live ones got “unwrapped” gifts from them this year, how can you go past giving a goat?) but I wanted to find a grassroots organisation in Melbourne which helps those here to make positive changes in their lives. A major criteria was finding a charity that is non religious. It was a shock to find very few existed. My pick in recent years has been y.com.au/index.cfm?pid=2534&pageid=2534>The Smith Family. One program supports and mentors kids to help them stay on at school when they are not getting the help they need to do so.