Sunday, September 27, 2009

Tis the season to be thrifty

What a gap I've had in blogging!

Now that Spring is finally arriving, and the footy season is finished, I hope I might get back into it with this small message that Christmas is coming along towards us and a shameless advertisement for buying secondhand books for Christmas presents in this era of austerity.

I was prompted to this thought by a list I read recently in an issue of
Zadok Perspectives, a magazine put out by the Melbourne-based, Zadok Institute for Christianity and Society. This handy list contains ideas for giving cheap, recycled, hand-made, but welcome Christmas gifts that do not chew up too many of our planet's resources. Good second-hand books are on obvious inclusion. Here's the list:
  • Make a gift (make a card, frame a photo, bake some biccies, cook some chutney, collate a recipe book, write out a poem, bottle some jam - apricots are in season in December!)
  • Give a voucher (babysitting, home made cake, a night at the movies)
  • Recycle an old treasure (book, lamp, kitchen canisters, groovy retro plate)
  • Pot a plant (take lavender, pelargonium or daisy cuttings, sow seed in a small pot ready to give away, prune and uproot an unwanted rose bush and give it to someone who'd love it)
  • Reduce needless consumer spending (give a gift to a charity in someone's name, draw names instead of buying for everyone in a family, buy an edible gift and pay a fair price for it eg fair trade organic coffee).
You can also follow up with other suggestions at www.buynothingchristmas.org

2 comments:

deliab said...

Bravo! Bravo! I applaud wholeheartedly!

Mati said...

And yet another idea - waste not, the gift of giving www.charitygiftceritificates.org