Spirit of Giving

I know it's still early in the year to be thinking about Christmas, but in the spirit of what Christmas SHOULD be about (giving, not receiving) I thought I'd mention two projects that definitely need some Christmas giving: Heifer International and Lantern Projects.

They both offer people the options of making a big donation (i.e. buying a cow for a village or buying a trip to a hospital for a child in Vietnam) or of making a small donation (i.e. buying a share of a cow or buying mosquito netting for one family). Both causes are much more deserving of money than I am of more junk around the house.

When it comes right down to it, I live in luxury. Sure, we have bills that make us bite our nails every month, and sometimes we can't afford to buy the foods we'd prefer to have... but we have a cabinet full of canned goods and dry pastas and cold cereals; we aren't going to starve any time soon. I won't be going to bed hungry. The same can't be said for a lot of people out there.

So in the spirit of giving, I'm encouraging people to ask that instead of people buying you things off your Amazon wishlist, they make a charitable donation and give you a print-out or send you an e-mail to show you what donation they've made. To me, that would be vastly more satisfying than anything I want... even the baby things that I REALLY want for Jacob. *L*