In our Reader Survey a couple of months back, we received some excellent suggestions about blog posts related to the holidays:
Ethical Christmas shopping ideas and gifts. Yep, love it, coming up soon! [update: here it is! 50 Ethical Businesses & Social Enterprises with Gifts that Give Back]
Ways to approach Christmas gift-giving when you have children and you want them to be more others-focused. Fantastic question! See here and here for a start...
How to graciously tell someone that you want to receive an ethical gift at Christmas instead of something that you don't want or don't have room to store. Or, how to graciously change large family gift giving practices at Christmas/ keep it fun for the kids but avoid excess and unnecessary spending. (Avoid being the Scrooge:))
Tough one! And, what a great question.
Managing expectations with gift-giving & -receiving, limiting “stuff” without raining on the parade, being gracious and thankful… these are all big challenges of the season!
There are some clear challenges out of the gate:
It is (almost always) challenging to have conversations about expectations with family. Period! Whether the topic is gifts, time spent together, traditions, philosophy on child rearing… except in the most thoroughly functional and communicative of families, we can expect a bit of tension going into a conversation like this.
It is a fine line to walk when telling someone else what kind of gift to get you! Gifts are, by very nature, an outpouring of the gift-giver’s generosity and desire to share their kindness and love (in theory, at least).
Particularly if you are wanting a specifically ethical gift (fair trade, organic, Made in USA, etc.), these items are less widely available, often more pricey, and more work to obtain.
So, with that in mind, and an opportune time approaching, how do you talk about this???