Meaningful Gifts Redefine Christmas

What do you give to the person who has everything? What about a goat? Or perhaps a flock of chickens? Not only will the gift of a goat or chickens be unforgettable, it will be a more lasting present than most of the gifts given this year.

Of course, I’m not actually suggesting that you pack up a goat and ship it off to your Mom and Dad. The goat might keep the grass cut and the chickens could well provide some tasty eggs for breakfast, but livestock would be more imposition than gift for most Americans. But if the animals are given through Heifer Project International, the gift of livestock can transform a whole community over time.

I have seen this on the ground while working in Tanzania. The church I worked with there as an intern in 1998 took part in Heifer Project. The community had a cow that was donated by a person in America. The cow had gone to one family who raised it until the cow gave birth to a calf. They kept the cow and gave the calf back to the project, making their local Heifer chapter self perpetuating. Through a single donation, many families came to have a steady source of milk and a minor source of income. This is just one example of the many development programs offered at www.heifer.org. Any of these gifts will still be helping another community long after the latest electronic gadgets have become obsolete.

            Heifer Project itself is just one example of several ways in which you can change your pattern of giving in a way that makes the world a better place to live. After all, Christmas is a time of giving to others. Yet much of this giving does a little to stimulate the economy, but does nothing to provide any lasting change. Much of the giving we do accomplishes nothing toward Jesus’ command to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and clothe the naked.

For example, the amount of money Americans spent on candy alone during the last three months of the year is greater than the annual budgets of the American Cancer Society, The American Heart Association and Habitat for Humanity combined. Candy is nice, but surely we can make our money go farther with charitable giving than with candy canes alone.

            The website www.redefine-christmas.org is a non-profit link to forms of charitable giving for the holidays. It’s the work of the Dalio Family Foundation to encourage other families to get back to the roots of Christmas through gifts which work to improve the world. Once you decide that you don’t have to give the people on your gift list a thing to have and to hold, your gift giving can be unleashed to go farther.

In a year like this one, where there might be less money to go around, charitable giving makes even more sense for at least two reasons: 1) you can pool a gift, giving (for example) the flock of chickens to several people on your gift list so that the price per person doesn’t overstretch your budget, and 2) the gift giving you do take part in will go farther as the gift is one of ongoing development.

Our denomination, The Episcopal Church, offers an alternative gift market through a program called Gifts for Life (http://www.er-d.org/GiftsForLife/). They offer gifts from a $5,000 well for a village to a $12 mosquito net which helps in malaria prevention. Ask at your own church where similar options may be available through your denomination.

            Locally, there is an excellent way for your family to make Christmas better for another family. Christmas for Camden Kids is one of the best programs offered in our county for pulling local groups together to support local needs. Purchasing a gift in Camden County for a local child both supports our county’s economy and provides for needs right here at home.

            You can give monetary support, or go out and buy a needy local child a Christmas gift. To take part in Christmas for Camden Kids, send a check to P.O. Box 992, St. Marys, GA 31558 or call Sandra Craig at (912) 882-5388.

            The greatest Christmas gift was still that first gift of Emmanuel, God with us, in the form of Jesus. Our Lord came not to a palace but to a lowly manger, a feed box. We can best remember that gift of God being born as a human, by making the love we feel for God real to a person in need.

            Whether you opt for a flock of chickens or toys for a local child, look for ways in which your Christmas gift giving can go farther by reaching out to others. It will make your celebration of Jesus all the more meaningful.

            (The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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