Giving Without Shopping

By Viki King

• Wal-Mart Fined $7,000 for "Black Friday" Employee Death • Online Holiday Sales Dip • Christmas Sales Forecast Gets More Grim • Black Friday Victim's Family Sues Wal-Mart • Giving Without Shopping: Make It a Priceless Holiday • Cyber Monday Spending Jumps 15 Percent • More Evidence Consumers Plan to Reduce Holiday Spending • Retailers' "Desperation" to Mark Black Friday • 'Tis The Season For Stress & Depression • CPSC Offers Toy Safety Tips for Holiday Shopping • Consumers Playing Rebate Roulette This Holiday Season • Beware of Zero Percent Financing • Survey Finds Consumers Wary about Holiday Returns • NYC Fines Retailers for Return & Restocking Fee Violations • Retailers Urged to Curb Violent Video Games • Smart, Careful Shopping Will Help Keep the Season Bright • Video Game Industry Gets a D+ • Negative Option Scams May Snag Online Holiday Shoppers • Retailers' Return Policies Getting Tougher • Safety, Shopping, Charitable Giving Tips • Consumer Reports Holiday Guide • The Gift That Keeps On Taking • Best of All: Giving Without Shopping

We know that you love your family and friends - you just don't love going to the mall. Alas, how can you give without shopping?

Those born with the gift-giving gene, who have the absolute knack to know the perfect gift and where to find it wholesale, are out there now with glee, amassing packages. Since you are reading this article chances are you suffer from Systemic Shoppers Gruel.

Here are your symptoms that we can heal:

• You have no time,
• You have no method,
• You have no money,
• You have no place to put it,
• You have no religious, moral, or cultural inclination to join the ever-encroaching commercialism of the season

When you have no time:
‘Tis the season to be inundated. If you find yourself already overwrought, overextended and under pressure, here is the secret to solving this … put yourself to bed. Behold, the world is joyful once you've had a rest. If you find yourself saying, "I can't go to bed I have too much to do" -- that's especially when you need to stop it, drop it and go have yourself a merry little Christmas. If you are doing more and more and it is meaning less and less, you won't find peace on Earth going in that direction.

When you have no method:
Perhaps you haven't yet, after all these years, adopted a Christmas shopping method. The best solution for you is Theme Presents - such as books for everybody. Go to an online bookstore. Select, click and have them delivered. (Go to bed)

We've all been on the receiving end of what-were-they-thinking? Don't-they-know-who-I-am gifts. This is when size, color, age appropriateness and most especially taste are in jeopardy. If you are a grandpa living 3000 miles away from your favorite granddaughter you might not know what a twelve-year old girl finds fashionable. Go ahead express your love just get help choosing the items. For instance, ask the mom if you can contribute to the bike purchase or have someone talented in gift-giving shop for you.

When You Have No Money:

1) How can you buy a fruitcake for the neighbors? Here's the answer … don't. If you overspend for Christmas and then all next year are in debt and have to catch up, you might consider skipping this year. Don't accrue the debt. Next year instead of paying it all off you can be saving for Christmas, 2004. Imagine how free you'll feel. This is very powerful and probably the best present you can give to yourself and your family that outlasts anything else you could have bought.

2) Shop in the house and give heirlooms to the family. They can enjoy you and your grandma's doilies while you're still alive. After you've given all the heirlooms give ‘yourlooms' - favorite things of yours that your family and friends have admired or would appreciate because you treasure them. Last year a friend was just thrilled to receive all of his brother's Pendleton shirts presented on their Dad's old wooden hangers.

3) Give coupons for a service that you will do for your loved ones. This can be anything from computer help to taking out the garbage for a month. Personal service coupons are so appreciated because you're giving the gift of you to them. Also kids love the gift of permission from their parents such as a coupon not to clean their room. This works very effectively for romantic offerings too, such as back rubs and bubble baths. Use your imagination.

• Kids love to hear the story of how they got named or about their birth or what happened when they were two. CDs and audio cassettes are so easy to make now. Open the mic and tell a story.
• Write a letter and tell them what you love and appreciate about them.
• Have an evening together of creating a collage for each person.
• If you have a video camera have the family make a movie together. Write it, decide the director, cast it, costume it, have fun, have it forever. If you don't have a camera put it on as a play.
• One year I gave everybody Certificates of Merit and acknowledged a recent achievement that each person had. I noticed some of those still hanging in loved ones' houses years later.
• Shop in your closet. Kids love dress-up. Give them an old hat and costume jewelry from your collection.
• From the kitchen – make a delicious goody. Put together a whole meal in a box such as pasta and marinara and parmesan cheese. This you might have to shop for but you can do it while you're at the supermarket getting your usual.
• Having a computer is a boon to creating personalized stationary and all manner of banners and individualized art.
• Arrange togetherness - Maybe this is the year to create a meaningful new tradition with your family. Maybe this year is the year to join or create a charity and feed someone who might not have a happy holiday otherwise. When my friend Joan was a kid and had no turkey dinner she said that the local church put a box of food on their doorstep. She was so amazed that people thought of her family. That feeling stayed with her all the way through her becoming a self-made millionaire who now has an organization of food give-away on a large scale.
• At Christmas dinner go around the table and tell what each person means to you and how that person impacts your life. It's a gift that uplifts and is treasured.

Bah Humbug You can decide to not have Christmas and not give anything to anybody. Often people are very relieved when you suggest that you not exchange gifts. You don't celebrate Christmas as your religious Holiday and yet there is pressure from your loved ones who do give gifts.

Let it be known that you are willing to show your love, you're just not willing to fill their stocking. I just got a call from a mom whose son is studying Anne Frank at school and Anne found and created gifts for her family from what little they had in their hiding space. As an assignment all the kids are finding and creating gifts and are very enthusiastic about this idea. It doesn't have to be about Christmas.

Enough is enough - there's not another thing we need and where would we put it anyway.

I like a gift policy that a couple that lives in a small New York apartment has. All gifts have to be flat or you can eat it.

For the man who has everything, except time and relaxation and piece of mind: My friend who was an overworked producer had everything money could buy, what he needed most was relaxation so I arranged to have an English Butler serve him and his wife breakfast in bed with the Sunday New York Times. He claims it was a turning point for him. He realized how depleted he was and changed his schedule.

You needn't accumulate more stuff. Celebrate your loved ones by arranging a fabulous gathering such as a vacation in lieu of presents. Give the Bahamas or a snowball fight at your local park or a bonfire that you all enjoy together.

So instead of not liking shopping and not liking spending and not liking taking it all back after Christmas give the gift of acknowledging and appreciating and enjoying this time of year.

There was just a soft knock at my door and it was the sweet little girl next door. She gave me a little jingle-bell wreath that she made. My heart just leapt. I looked around my house and created a pretty something for her and I could see her heart leapt the same as mine. Giving without shopping. Joy To the World.

Copyright © 2003. All Rights Reserved www.vikiking.com

Click here to contact Viki King for counsel if you actually thought you were a fully-realized human being and are now experiencing the heebie-jeebies about visiting your family for Christmas.

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