Charity Christmas Cards – Give to Charity
In what was intended to be a helpful timely guide – how to make your own christmas hamper we offered suggestions as to selecting small personal gifts that people would actually be pleased to receive. Thoughtful Christmas giving can take many forms - charity gifts, home made presents, vouchers – and of course hard cash.
Christmas Gifts – Give them money
I have suggested to my family that someone go to the bank and get a 500 Euro bank notr (do they still have them or have the panicing Spanish hoarded them under their matresses?) and all the adults stand in a circle and pass the bill around. The next day or so the original buyer of the note deposits it back in to his account. Now when asked by friends what they got they can say “A 500 Euro Note” or if asked what they spent for gifts “500 Euros.”
Charity Christmas Cards
The postal strike aside (anyone actually noticed) it is the perfect time of year to pretend to keep in touch with those far far away by sending Christmas cards.
Again this is an opportunity to support charity by buying and sending your favourite organisations cards. Beware though as charity Christmas cards are not all equal – those on sale in high street department stores sometime only give up a teeny proportion of the spent to charity – best to buy direct from the organisation themselves.
Christmas Card Scenes
I read recently on the Guardian a string of comments suggesting that Christmas card scenes were out of touch with the modern world – and should depict ordinary people in the city doing their work surrounded by pollution blackened snow.
You in that there London should get out more! Where I live we are surrounded by idyllic country lanes leading to peaceful village churches, pheasants running around everywhere you look, wayside innns with crackling open fires, frozen ponds, etc. And this is accessible from central London by rail. Take a train, live a little!
And yes, of course Christians chose the pagan festival of Solstice to celebrate the light of our lives, but only because the symbolism is about the same thing – light out of darkness, hope out of despair, spiritual riches defeating material poverty etc. Okay, so it’s all a bit of a myth about the stable and stuff, but all myths point to deep truths that resonate within all of us and I challenge anyone born in England to say that their heart isn’t secretly warmed by all that gumpf, Christian or not.
I love sending Christmas cards and receiving them – were it not for this tradition I’d have no excuse to say an out of the blue hi to people who I have a lifetime’s affection for and a wish to keep in touch…but no real reason to go and visit at this stage in my life.
This is a great news. The holidays is a great time to send our loved ones greeting cards and it will be awesome if from buying cards, we are able to contribute to a charity. Thanks for sharing the information.
Unfortunately, Xmas cards are a habit we are leaving in the past, as people prefer to send e-cards, and greetings online, but it’s not the same.
I simply love sending postcards, and receiving them. You can get epostcards any time, they mean nothing, but to receive a post card is a cellebration.
Hi
Picking up on your “not all cards are equal point” the inputs costs are not equal either. We sell Christmas cards and donate 10p to charity for each card sold. This is much less than some cards which donate say 100% to the charity. However those cards are produced and marketed by the charities so whilst they donate more they also cost the charities more to produce and the charities are left with the risks of not selling them etc. It is really just swings and roundabouts!
http://www.cardsforcharity.co.uk is a great place to buy your charity Christmas cards as 75p in the pound goes to charity. They represent many different charities too so you can choose a particular one to support. Hope this helps.
If you haven’t got the time to address hundreds of envelopes this Christmas, FARM-Africa’s animated e-cards are a fast, easy and fun alternative to traditional cards. With prices as low as 40p per card, it’s even cheaper than buying and posting a traditional cards! Sending FARM-Africa e-cards helps improve the lives of African families and protects the forest environment for future generations.