give a little

Here are some startling statistics: Americans spend $450 billion each Christmas, lack of clean water kills more people every day than any other cause, and the worldwide water crisis could be solved for just $10 billion. Starting with those facts, the Advent Conspiracy movement encourages people to spend time with loved ones instead of purchasing gifts and to give that money away in the name of Christ. AC partners with Living Water International to dig wells and provide clean water in Africa, India, and South America, and churches across the country are collecting special offerings this month to benefit Living Water.

Here are some more numbers to get your attention:  the amount of money spent just on candy, during just three months of the year, is more than the annual budgets of The American Cancer Society, The American Heart Association, and Habitat for Humanity combined. Redefine Christmas doesn’t ask you to stop all gift-giving or redirect your candy money toward clean water (although it does add a whole second layer of guilt to that Snickers bar, doesn’t it?). Instead, they urge you to give to family, friends, and charitable causes at the same time by donating to organizations reflecting the interests and passions of the recipient.

For instance, Jen Gherardi, a Christian Standard reader who wrote to tell me about Redefine Christmas, suggests you honor the parent or grandparent who read you countless bedtime stories with a donation to First Book or another charity dedicated to improving literacy and providing books to needy children. Your sister who loves to cook might be touched with a donation in her name to a ministry dedicated to alleviating hunger, your animal-loving brother would appreciate a gift to the ASPCA, and your best friend who adores So You Think You Can Dance could enjoy knowing you made a gift to the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. (If enough of us gave to that, these reality shows might eventually go off the air—and that’s what they mean by a gift that keeps on giving, folks.)

Redefine Christmas provides links to all these groups and hundreds more and provides a personalized card for you to announce each gift. You can also purchase gift cards for the recipient who might enjoy choosing her own charity and “gift baskets” with assortments of charities united by a topic like mentoring children, planting trees, or working for peace. The site even offers ecards for you to request donations to your own favorite organization in lieu of gifts for yourself.

My family stopped giving gifts to each other a few years ago. While I’d like to say this decision was driven by philanthropy, the more pressing reasons were the cost of buying them and the hassle of schlepping them around the country. (A holiday tip: If you ever have the opportunity to check a bag and fly the red-eye at 12:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve from LAX to Cincinnati, just……don’t.)

But it’s not too late to redirect some Christmas dollars toward improving the world, and this year I plan to join the conspiracy and redefine my Christmas by giving to a worthy cause. I may start with Alvin Ailey.