Holiday Pimpage

This is the time of year when I pimp http://www.heifer.org, a wonderful charitable organization. It's the quintessence of the saying, "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime". The organization is about creating sustainable livings rather than just giving food to people. Monetary contributions are used to by livestock and/or seeds to be sent to places that need them, then the first fruits of the donations are passed on to help others create sustainable livings.

My family has been making a group donation to this organization for the past six or seven years or so, using the money we would otherwise use to buy each other Christmas gifts. We realized that as adults, when we wanted something for ourselves, we'd buy it, so buying gifts for each other had become an exercise in futility. By doing this, we're able to help people who need it, rather than simply going through the motions of "the season". An unintended but excellent by-product of this is that we don't have to shop during Christmas-time, a HUGE bonus. Stress-free holidays, AND the feeling of having done something useful? What more does anyone need?