Given the state of the world, now is a great time to change our perspective on traditional holiday consumerism. With most corporate and social celebrations canceled this year, we have time to slow down and create more consciousness around our gift-giving.
What Does Conscious Gifting Look Like?
Close your eyes, take several deep breaths, and create an inner smile. Remember that giving gifts can be a tremendous joy when we tap into our intuition for flow and guidance. This also helps us clear out any societal programming about how much money we should spend, on what makes an appropriate gift, comparison with others, etc.
Before Buying…
- Set the intention for your shopping to be peaceful
- Prioritize personal and creativity over trying to impress
- Create some meaning or a message of love and appreciation
- Consider the environmental impact of your purchases
- Decide what types of businesses you want to support
- Aim for amusement as you proceed through this process
2020 is the Year to Go Rogue!
This unusual year gives us a convenient excuse to make radical changes to our traditional thinking of what the holidays are, mean, and “should” look like.
Eschew societal programming that says we show the depth of our love through the price of our presents. Nope, not buying into that messaging!
Heal your desire to protect your children from peer competition. They do not need, nor do you want to create for them The Most Amazing Holiday Ever Recorded in the History of Holidays just so they don’t feel bad when they hear about their friend’s bonanza. This just sets everyone up for the same stress/expectation year after year, and perpetually into future generations. It also creates unnecessary pain for families struggling to keep up with your kid’s windfall.
Intangible Gifts
My favorite gifts are intangible. In our family, we call them experience gifts. Even with all the travel and health restrictions of late, our ability to gift consciously is truly limited only by our creativity — and our mindset. It took some training for my kids to appreciate experience gifts, but now they sometimes even request them!
Experience gifts have the added benefits of anticipation, that they are often done with others, and their memories can last a lifetime. There’s nothing to maintain, dust, clean, repair, insure, or eventually move, try to sell, donate or worse, trash.
To give younger children the feeling of having a thing to open, put a picture that represents the experience in a box with a note describing the details, or keep the specifics a surprise!
Experience Gift Ideas
Some of these will need to wait until it’s safe, but they will help get your creative juices flowing:
· Plan a camping or backpacking trip together
· Visit a local farm sanctuary and connect with animals and nature
· Pack a picnic with your loved one’s favorite foods, pick a new beach, park, playground, or meadow to explore
· Plant a tree in a loved one’s name if they are long distance or plant one (or 10!) together for those living locally
· Acts of Service — make a meal or two with the promise of cleaning up, taking someone’s car in for service, airport runs, babysitting. Children/Tweens don’t have much money and usually like giving acts of service gifts. They might just need to have the idea suggested and then appreciated no matter the effort since we want to foster this type of gift-giving mindset.
· Kids can give their parents hand-made coupons to mow the lawn, groom the dog, clean the garage, or weed the garden
· One year, my kids surprised me with an animated movie they made about green smoothies
· Teens can give their parents quality time together — that’s what we crave most! A win-win since the memories created will turn into a shared gift for them, too, even if they don’t appreciate it in the moment
· Parents can give tweens vouchers — for extra time playing video games, staying up late, picking the family movie or game night, dinner and dessert of choice, or a city bus pass
· Teens and young adults might like a coffee or lunch date, or dinner for them and their best friend or partner. All of my teens love thrift shops so a day of thrifting could be fun. A subscription to Audible or Spotify would count as an experience gift in my opinion.
Other Non-Tangible Gift Ideas
· Having a mass, meditation, or other religious service said in someone’s honor
· Donating to someone’s favorite charity in their name
· Gift a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription box, which would support local farmers and surely delight the recipient every week
· For the animal lovers in your family, try eating animal-free for a month with a positive attitude. Trust me, this would be appreciated beyond your wildest imagination!
· Needless to say, you could really go unique and give a Clairvoyant Reading wink wink!
This is by no mean an exhaustive list, it’s just meant to jumpstart the creative juices!
Many more people are suffering financially this year than normal and could use cash rather than a tangible item that is going to sit in a drawer or gather dust on a shelf.
Or an even greater gift for the financially strapped is a mutual agreement to forgo gifts all together taking the pressure off both parties and our planet! Have a deep, heart-felt conversation instead.
Conscious Gifting Challenge — Lead Locally
With that foundation, we can consider more criteria. Let’s commit to supporting small, local, and family-owned businesses — especially those that are supporting our Earth with environmentally friendly and sustainable offerings.
While it’s convenient to send a Starbucks, Trader Joes, or Amazon card to your loved ones living far away, can you challenge yourself to go one step further?
HERE’S A STORY HOW ONE OF OUR FRIENDS DID THAT FOR US…
When our home was hit by a mudslide and we were displaced, a friend - who lives two states away - took the time to search back through our OneGreenSmoothie (our passion project) Instagram posts to find the local, vegan restaurants and coffee shops we had supported. She contacted several and sent us gift cards for those places.
Not only was this one of the most personal, memorable, and helpful gifts we’ve ever received, it opened my eyes to ways of helping those far away when we can’t be there in person. This same principal can be applied for holiday gifting to loved ones who live far away.
It definitely took more time and hassle for our friend, but when I asked her about it, she said it was “fun!” That’s the energy we want to cultivate when giving gifts. We want to feel JOY, which can include supporting businesses that do right by our local and larger community.
Money is Energy — How do You Choose to Use Yours?
When we buy something from Amazon or Walmart, most, if not all, of our money leaves the community — perhaps even the country. However, studies show that for every dollar spent on a local business, 45 cents stays within that community — a win-win for everyone!
Luckily, certificates to local restaurants, bakeries, or coffee shops are always appreciated by young and old alike.
Memberships to the local botanical garden, museum, independent gym, or yoga studio make great gifts year-round!
Let’s take the Conscious Gifting challenge by taking a moment to get clear on our intentions and priorities, even for those living long-distantly!
Committing to Conscious Gifting Creates Confidence
Instead of worrying about being judged as cheap or your gifts as insufficient, change your mindset to know you are being creative, caring, and most of all conscious! Summon your strength to go against the status quo and the persistent patriarchal programming that proclaims — worth is tied to the price tag of tangible things.
If you feel good about what you want to create for your family, they will pick up your positive energy and learn to think independently in the process. Even if you’re feeling hesitant or worried about disappointing anyone, be determined to project confidence and joy in your decision.
In what ways can you get personal and creative in your conscious gifting this year?
What creative, caring, and conscious gift would you like to receive from your loved ones? You may have to drop some hints.
Commit to conscious gifting and see how that creates confidence that will spread within you and to your loved ones. It’s a beautiful experience!
PS Whatever you do, please don’t ever buy balloons. They are single-use plastic, suffocate sea life, and can maim or kill animals on land and birds in the air.
