1. Buy Fair Trade Products – Some great sources include the following:

- A Greater Gift. The fair trade site of SERRV, a program of the Church of the Brethren. http://www.agreatergift.org/

- 10,000 Villages – Try their Internet site, http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/, if you can’t get to their store at 1603 Battleground Avenue, Suite E

2. Join one.org. Help Bono end poverty and be stylish too. Wear the bracelet (they make cheap stocking stuffers) or the t-shirt and join the movement. World Vision, Oxfam, UNICEF, and several church denominations (including the Episcopal Church) support them as official sponsors! They don’t want your money, just your voice. http://www.one.org/ 

3. Buy a village a cow at the Heifer Project! Also, you can set up a registry, so that when people ask you what you want, you can send them here. Smaller farm animals also available. http://www.heifer.org/

4. Help someone to see a shrink through Oxfam. When you buy a gift, it provides help for someone overseas. An unusual catalogue of possibilities (Actually, the counseling sessions are for people getting AIDS testing.) http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com/l

5. Adopt a puffin, baby elephant, crocodile, polar bear, or another endangered animal at the World Wildlife Fund – You’ll even get adoption papers. http://www.worldwildlife.org/

6. Give gift certificates for services. Offer you sister free babysitting for your new niece. Do Grandpa’s grocery shopping, or spend an afternoon cooking an elderly aunt meals for the week. Give Dad a free car wash. Teach Mom the intricacies of IM. They’ll thank you as much for the time they get to spend with you.

7. Think ahead. A great gift for next year would be a family genealogy. Interview family to start, then try the web, with such places as http://www.genealogy.com/index_r.html. This is a commercial site, but, with a little time, you can do much of the research they do for free.

8. Exhausted? Get a cup of fair trade coffee, and help in disaster relief at Episcopal Relief and Development. You’ll love the Bishop’s Blend coffee, and you can know that 94% of you donations go to actual relief efforts. Also, check out the “Gifts for Life” section. http://www.er-d.org/