Holiday
Gifts Can Help People and the Planet
Brandon
Sun “Small World” Column, Monday,
November 22 / 21
Zack Gross
Zack Gross
Yesterday was the strategic planning day set aside by my wife and me to look at what to give family and friends during the holiday season. But it wasn’t the actual gift-buying or ordering day, as that was vetoed by my wife, based on her research into our daily horoscope. Not a good day for making purchases, but okay for planning!
In Canada, last year (2020), people spent about $1276 per person on gifts leading up to the holidays, with a third of Canadians squirreling away money specifically to spend on presents. Canadians rank third globally for holiday gift spending after the United States and the United Kingdom. About a quarter of Canadians planned to spend less in 2021, but good luck with that!
A third of Canadians, whether out of convenience or due to concerns about the pandemic, now do their holiday shopping on line while only another third do all their shopping in physical stores. Half of Canadians say they set concrete budgets for holiday shopping and more than half say they always spend more than budgeted. A quarter of Canadians expect to shop last-minute. The top categories for spending in December each year tend to be food and drink, and electronic equipment.
As always, I am looking for how to buck the trends and make other/better decisions in how we live our lives. What can we buy or give during the holiday season that satisfies the needs and desires of those receiving our gifts while doing less harm to the environment by filling it with breakable toys and needless luxuries?
To answer this question, at least for myself, I will look at my own situation. I have young grandchildren, so one idea that came to mind was to contribute funds to Registered Education Savings Plans, thus putting money away for their futures while accruing some kind of tax benefit. The earlier you start this kind of initiative, the greater the benefit.
You can also purchase a life insurance policy in a child’s name. My parents did that for me many, many years ago. At one point, I was able to borrow money on it to pay for my university education.
Given the challenges some of our adult children face as working parents these days, having no personal time left for themselves, we thought we could contribute to parental sanity by gifting an evening out – tickets to a game, movie or other activity plus covering the cost of babysitting (or doing it ourselves!).
Sometimes, you just need to ask the direct question: What do you need? Or take a good look at someone’s house and see what needs to be added, fixed or done. As in our case, you might end up purchasing rather unusual gifts. We gave one set of children a new toilet! Other necessities we’ve come up with are hairdryers, cheese graters, and lint remover rollers.
For gift-giving to senior relatives and friends, who often don’t want to accumulate more “stuff”, you can offer to mow their lawn or shovel their snow, clean out their garage or organize their basement. (Are you listening to me, kids?).
In our pandemic times, many people are turning to developing their home-baking and craft skills, or getting into puzzles, crosswords, video games and reading. A younger relative said to me “give me books that you’ve really enjoyed”, and that is the ideal gift-giving activity for both the giver and the recipient! As for baked gifts, pass the butter tarts and chocolate covered biscotti, please!
A donation to a favorite charity is also often welcomed by someone who feels that they “have everything.” The local food bank, an environmental organization, the humane society, or a global assistance group, and more – there are lots of options here. As arts organizations are also suffering during the pandemic, a donation in a loved-one’s name to the local symphony, opera, art gallery, folk festival or ballet is another option.
And, for those passionate about social issues, a gift that is fair trade, organic, made by a local artisan and so forth, will be most welcome. As a fair trade advocate, I use the holiday season to send ethically sourced coffee and chocolate to all my loved ones!
Holiday time can be stressful, no less so during our COVID reality. Use gift-giving this year as a way to do something special and personal.
Zack Gross is Board Chair of The Marquis Project, a Manitoba-based international development organization.
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