23
Nov 2012
18
Nov 2012
As the holidays approach and we are faced with the shopping and the cooking and the gatherings with friends and family, many people also consider it a time to remember the less fortunate. It is not uncommon to find collection bins for items or money at local businesses. Local media sources remind us of toy drives and food drives (and more shopping to be done). The spirit of giving can truly become contagious at times.
While community generosity serves as a foundation for many nonprofit operations, that same generosity in excess can become a burden. So, when you are trying to come up with a way to help your favorite charity this holiday season, consider a few handy tips for good donor citizenship.
- Reach out and ask: Before you organize all of your friends and family to collect their unwanted clothing or to knit scarves or to bake cookies, CONTACT THE CHARITY. Many nonprofits have limited storage space, and while your intentions are wonderful, if even just a few other people had the same idea, you have just overwhelmed the organization’s staff. Call. E-mail. Find out what they actually need. And if you want to give clothing (or other goods in kind that consume tangible space) and they say “no”—accept the answer with kindness and then ask, “What is your greatest need at the moment?” And then listen. Needs at a nonprofit change—sometimes daily—but what doesn’t change is that there are always needs.
- The universal gift: When you are struggling with what to get that difficult person on your list, what is the best default? What comes in every size and fills every need? Money. And gift cards. The same goes with your favorite charity. As much as it may seem impersonal, your gift of cold, hard cash is about the best possible thing you can give. Every organization has non-sexy bills to pay—electricity, gas, water, phone/internet, and salaries. Yes, the salaries of the people who work at your favorite charity are often paid through donations. (There isn’t a charity fairy making up a payroll list, in case you were wondering.) Give the gift in honor of someone to spice it up a little. Or ask about options for a restricted gift. Heck, some organizations have possibilities for naming rights and sponsorships even for modest donations (think donor displays or those brick pathways with all of the inscriptions). And if you like the gift card option, just call and find out which cards and which denominations are best. Small denominations are usually good when they are given to clients as incentives, and larger denominations could help when shopping for supplies.
- Think outside of the gift box: What I mean by this is that your good intentions in November and December will be just as appreciated (if not more so) in January and February. Nonprofits often find themselves overwhelmed with good intentions in December and are then nearly forgotten once the New Year has arrived. So, instead of a Christmas or Hanukkah collection for your favorite charity, perhaps do something for Valentine’s Day. Or for no reason at all. But before you get inspired, please do follow tip #1…
Share your joy with others. Give big. Give often. But most importantly, give from the heart.
Jennifer Signore is a scientist turned writer, mother, and nonprofit professional. She has been volunteering since before she can remember and is delighted to have turned her years of experience into a rewarding career. She currently works as a freelance writer and fundraising consultant in Pittsburgh, PA, where she also channels her all-too-infrequent moments of free time into knitting, singing, and other creative ventures.
12
Oct 2012
So easy kids can make them with minimal supervision. The high butter content makes them crispy like shortbread instead of soft like a traditional oatmeal cookie. Made with instant oatmeal packets, they can be mushed together with your hands and plopped onto the baking sheet. They’re supposed to be pale in color, so pull them out before they brown too much.
Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal Short Cookies
Ingredients:
3 packets instant maple brown sugar oatmeal
1/3 cup flour
1 stick butter, softened
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mush all three ingredients together with a spoon or your hands. Roll into 12 small balls and place on cookie sheet. Flatten each ball slightly. Bake for 12-15 minutes and take out before they start to brown.
Makes 12 cookies.
(c) Magda Pecsenye, christmased.com
Magda Pecsenye runs Christmased.com and AskMoxie.org. She used to be a recipe developer in a former life.
03
Oct 2012
A few weeks ago, Toys R Us announced that it was launching a “toy reservation service” for the toys it predicted would be the hottest toys of the Christmas season. Parents who place a reservation (with down payment) by October 31 are guaranteed a toy when they are released before Christmas.
Here’s a story about the whole thing from when it was announced in early September.
Reading that story and thinking about it for a bit, I came up with the following conclusions:
1. You have to reserve by Halloween, which means we’re now officially rolling Christmas back before Halloween.
2. From the consumer point of view, this seems a lot like pre-ordering from Amazon. Except that most of the pre-orders I do are for books I know I’ll want to read, not toys I’m trying to predict if my kid will want three months from now.
3. Do kids always really want the “hottest toys”? What if you reserve and then on Christmas morning your kid’s all “meh”?
4. Arbitrage. Reserve now, then sell on Ebay for six times the price on December 22?
5. I wonder if there’s a limit from manufacturers on the number of toys Toys R Us can order, or if it would be possible for TRU to take enough reservations that manufacturers won’t have any stock left to sell to other retailers. If that happens, it could mean that TRU has essentially put Walmart, Target, and every other toy retailer out of business for the entire Christmas season.
6. From a supply chain perspective, this could make things far easier for toy manufacturers to predict and meet demand without excess.
What do you think about this? Would you do it?
27
Sep 2012
I’m 80% done with my Christmas shopping. On September 27.
I’ve always thought that shopping for Christmas gifts for people was an activity that was part of the Christmas season (or, for me, the Advent season). And I guess in theory that’s true. But the problem is that I end up getting stressed and getting people things I’m not truly happy with and spending more money than I should. Especially since two of my favorite people have birthdays within two weeks of Christmas, so I end up giving them either a lame Christmas gift or a lame birthday gift or both.
So this year I thought I’d try something new: When I came across something I thought someone would like, I bought it for Christmas.
I bought my first thing for my brother in March. In August I made a list of what I had, and discovered I was about halfway done. Today I’m about 80% done (including the two January birthdays!), if you count the project I’m knitting right now and will finish within the next day or two.
I even have fitting gifts for the hard-to-buy-for people on my list, and that makes me feel relieved. Stress-free. Clever. Maybe even a little bit smug.
I’m leaving that remaining 20% for the toys my kids see and want right before Christmas, or for last-minute things.
Now I’ll spend the next three months knitting for myself, making up new recipes, reading Henri Nouwen, and waiting for the arrival of Baby Jesus, knowing that the Things aspect of Christmas is already taken care of.
Madness, genius, or a little bit of both?
Magda Pecsenye runs Christmased.com and AskMoxie.org. Contrary to popular belief, she is in no way organized.
If you like this post, you might also like:
26
Sep 2012
And thanks for The Most Wonderful Time of the Year:
Andy Williams
December 3, 1927 – September 25, 2012
26
Sep 2012
T-minus 90 days until Christmas 2012. And that’s why we’re here. To kick things off for the early birds, and let those of you who don’t want to think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving feel smug about what crazies we early birds are.
Look, if people can have Oktoberfest in August, then we can start getting Christmased in September.
If you haven’t been here before, Christmased.com is a place for all things Christmas–the religious, the secular, and combos of both. We’re excited about Christmas, we like Christmas, but we also examine the dark side of the season–commercialism, isolation, disconnectedness. Basically, if you’re thinking it about Christmas, it’s safe to say it here.
Feel free to follow us on Twitter and Pinterest and Like us on Facebook. I’ll be putting up some Christmas music playlists in the next few weeks for your listening pleasure.
Have an idea for a topic you’d like to see here? Leave a comment here or on our FB page, or Tweet it to us.
And now for the big question: If you could get any gift this year for Christmas, what would it be?
06
Sep 2012
Gearing up for Christmased.com 2012 by planning posts. And new this year, you can follow us on Pinterest at Pinterest.com/GetChristmased and we’ll follow you back. Like us on Facebook here, and follow us on Twitter at @Christmased.
We’re also making Pandora stations to share with you.
It’s a little weird to be making things cozy when it’s hot and humid…
22
Dec 2011
Last weekend, Chris and I took our kids to a park called Dallas Heritage Village, a city park featuring a collection of historic Victorian-era buildings and living-history storytellers. It’s a great place any time, and in December, it’s is open late with bonfires and candles everywhere, and people dressed up in Victorian costumes singing Christmas carols. It’s an easy way to get into the Christmas spirit. Or, alternately, the Hanukkah spirit, because one of the great things about Dallas Heritage Village is that it one of the houses belonged to a Jewish family, and their religious observance is part of the living history of the building. I was explaining to my kid (the talkative one) about how the house we were in had belonged to a Jewish family.
“How can you tell?” she challenged me.
“Well, there is a Passover plate and a menorah over there on that cabinet. Those items are part of Jewish religious life, so a family that had them would be Jewish.”
“Well, we have a menorah and we’re not Jewish.”
We have a menorah because when we first moved to Dallas, all my friends were either from my church or my kids’ Christian school, and one December a few years ago, I was sad because it was Hanukkah and no one had invited us over to eat latkes and light candles. Dreadfully homesick for the diversity of the northeastern United States, horribly missing my friends, I bought a menorah and started celebrating Hanukkah with my family. We don’t make a big deal of it, but now every year we light the menorah and I read the story out loud to my kids, and I tell them that the Jews are God’s chosen people and He loves them, and I use the holiday to brainwash them just a little bit to make sure that they never, ever evangelize or proselytize Jews. I know it’s a little but unusual for Christians to celebrate Hanukkah, and I’m sure there are plenty of religious Jews who would be mightily offended to hear about our secular celebration of a Jewish holiday, just as there are plenty of religious Christians who think we’re nuts, but it’s part of our family’s tradition and we love it.
This year was different. This year, I did not stick a match on center candle of the menorah with a gnawing pit in my stomach, missing my friends. This year, the woman who was my best friend when I was thirteen, at whose bat mitzvah I lit a candle, whose parents were the first people to show me what it meant to them to be Jewish, is visiting me over Hanukkah. I grinned at her as I set up my menorah, and lit it.
“Check me out with the menorah,” I said. “I r teh awesomzorz.”
“Brat,” she said. “Show off.”
I’m going to wake my friend up at the crack of dawn to go with me to get freshly-made jelly doughnuts from the Korean couple who own the doughnut shop around the corner from my house.
Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. And please pass the doughnuts.
Elizabeth Rose is a stay-at-home mom, cancer survivor, and writer. You can find her blog at Dance with the Reaper.com, and her column Christmas Tango here every week at Christmased.com.
21
Dec 2011
(Ed. note: The first part of this two-part series, written by the author’s wife, a Christmas-celebrating American, is here: “The Modern Hortons”.)
I came from religious Muslim family, as I grew older, my parents did the pilgrimage to Mecca, fasted and prayed . I remember my father going to the Masjid to pray and my mother praying too. I guess what I am trying to say is my family was quite religious .
In Egypt, most of my Christian friends were Coptic and Christmas celebration is January 7th. My parents respected the “Christian” holidays and observed Christmas by fasting that day and celebrated with our neighbors. I learned from my parents to respect other religions and the people who practice them. My Dad used to tell us stories and assert how very close the holy books are as they came from the same God.
My friend at elementary school was Christian and we had to go to different classrooms during religious studies. When we got together we would talk about the prophets’ stories in the Bible and the Quran, we found that they are almost identical.
Fast forward to about 15 years ago, I met “the one”. We were going on our first date, where I went to her grandmother’s house to pick her up on the famous cookie weekend. When I was asked to get a Christmas tree for my almost bare bachelor’s apartment, I thought of it as a good start and just natural. I got to know about the Bronners’ Super Christmas store. Looking back now, we were starting to build our life together.
Every year we add more ornaments and have great fun in decorating the tree and the house. I love being able to be carried away with lights and the decorations. Shopping for the kids and my wife is a lot of fun. We all look forward to cookie weekend at our house now, opening the presents Christmas morning, but most of all we all look forward to Mommy’s home made cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Every year at this time it always hits me that we are very blessed to be able to spend another holiday together and celebrate it the way we want. There is always a point during the season where I feel calm and peaceful, remembering back to my childhood and start feeling what Christmas is all about.
A few years ago, our little ladies came home from school and dropped the bomb on Mommy that Christmas should not be observed by “Muslims”. I kind of knew that some Muslims thought that way about Christmas, despite the fact that Jesus is mentioned at least 25 honorable times in the Quran. That, I think was an eye opener for me as I am usually busy with work. I try to be proactive in the children’s perception and recognition of religion. I hope to teach them what my parents taught me, moderation and respect for all religions is essential to be a better person in life.
Khaled ElSayed, married father of three, loves holidays. You can put ‘holiday’ after any day of the year and he will find a way to celebrate it.