You Can't Hug Gift Wrap

Low-money, High-meaning

I struggle with gift-giving every year, and as the years go by, I do less and less of it. We all have so much stuff. More just adds to the clutter. All of that clutter comes right out of the earth and then leaves huge carbon and garbage footprints behind. And, do all of those gifts really make you feel happier? If they do, that's great. But if you want to spice up your regular gift-giving or replace it all together, here are some wacky ideas you might want to try.

I developed many of these ideas for my sister's family, with whom I celebrate Hanukkah, which I celebrate better than I spell. I'll give suggestions for adapting these ideas for non-Jews. My sister's family is strung across the United States, so these ideas also focus on how to share experiences via social networks and technologies. However, these, too are adaptable, for low-tech folks. Please post a comment on this post if you try one of these ideas. Let me know how it went.

Please note: Get someone to create a Facebook page for your family's holiday activities if you try any of my suggestions. You'll need a place where you can post and view photos from each other and comment on the activities you choose to do.

Remember, I've already said "wacky." If you are looking for dignity, go somewhere else! Here we go...

Phone Chain. Organize a phone chain by alphabetical order of first names (or age, or location, whatever) for sharing something specific, like something you love about the callee. The first person calls the second person and tells him or her what makes him or her great, the second person calls the third, and so on. At the end, scramble up the names for another round of calls. Scramble the names for every night of Hanukkah (or 12 Nights of Christmas?), using topics like a favorite memory, things that made you jealous, if that person were a tree what kind would he or she be...be creative. Post or Tweet comments to each other if you want.

Sharing a meal. Pick one night of Hanukkah (or other holiday date, like Christmas Eve). Make sure that everyone in your group is eating the exact same food at the exact same time that day no matter what the time zone. Post photos of yourself eating for everyone else to see. Anything from Big Macs to fruit cake would be acceptable, as long as you are all together.

Holiday Collage. Have everyone take a photo of lighting the Menorah (can’t spell this very well either) or doing some other holiday ritual, like hanging a stocking on the mantle. Post the photos for each other. See if someone in your family has the talent to convert the photos into a family collage.

Give a Gift to a Stranger Day. Give something away--a dozen cookies, a pair of gloves, a snow globe--use your imagination--to a stranger. Just tell them it is "Give a Gift to a Stranger Day" to celebrate the holidays. How did it turn out? Any surprises? Share comments on Facebook, Twitter, or by email. (Or tell the next person on your  nightly phone chain about it!)

Random Acts of Kindness Day. This is a variation of giving a gift to a stranger. For a whole day you'll have to keep your radar out for ways to be kind. Have everyone keep track of and share the experience. How much good will can you generate as a family?

Remember When... Have each person write down a few Hanukkah (or Christmas, or Dewali, or Ramadan, or...) memories to make a little booklet. I bet someone in your family can use a graphics program to put a polish on the final product. And surely someone knows how to scan old photos into the mix.

Unity Feast Un-united. This idea is purely for the wackiness of it all. It makes no sense. I love it. Each family member is assigned to make one dish for the feast. But, since you can't be together, you'll only get to eat the one dish you fix. (You can snack later.) Like, one person does latkes, but that’s all that person gets to eat. Other people have dessert or a salad, but that’s all they get to eat. And so on. Eat this meal on the same night. You could try Skyping together as you eat. Post photos.

Wackiness Against the Machines. Call a vending service person to complain that your money won't fit into the money slot. Make the technician pull the fact out of you that you are trying to buy a diet coke with Hanukkah gelt (chocolate money wrapped in gold foil). Share your experiences. I know this is a bit mean, but humor can be ugly. Please don't call a service technician out of bed at midnight on Christmas Eve when there is a blizzard just to do this. Or, OK, go ahead.

Wackiness Against the Machines (a kinder version). Stand at a vending machine till someone comes along and then try to get the Hanukkah gelt to go in the slot and complain about it to the person waiting for you to finish. It's up to you what tack to take--puzzled, angry, surprised. I guess you could try fake (children's) toy money, but that could get you arrested. As usual, chocolate is always a good fallback position.

Three-Way. Get your mind out of the bedroom, I'm talking about phone calls. Do a three-way Skype (or other videophone technology) and try to sing a song together (something a little more complex than the Dreidel song--I recommend the Hallelujah Chorus). I suspect that some laughter might ensue therefrom.

Skype With Puppets. I've just recently had my first Jetsonesque videophone experience and I keep thinking of bizarre things to do. So, make sock puppets, or brown paper bag puppets, or just draw lips with a red pen on your thumb and forefinger. (No, you do not have permission to go to Pinterest for instructions. Use Google like regular people.) At the Skype time, have the puppets talk to each other on camera. I don't know what will happen.

Fright Makeup. Likewise, you have my permission to apply fright makeup before Skyping with your parents, no matter how old you or they are.

Do Good With Money (Real, not Chocolate).  Pick a particular charity and see how many donations your family can generate in a single day using your various networks—email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, phone, knocking on doors, begging at bus stations. Have people donate in honor of a departed loved one or a famous hero like Rosa Parks or Harvey Milk. May I recommend Outreach International (outreach-international.org/) if you don’t have a charity in mind? This is actually a socially responsible suggestion--how did it sneak in here?

Chocolate Money Attack. Go out on purpose to put Hanukkah gelt into Salvation Army bellringers’ buckets. You decide whether to sneak it in or do it for all to see. Share your experiences. Have a handful of (real) coins or a five-dollar bill ready to sooth any bristled feelings and provide plausible deniability. "Oh, that's right, I keep the real money in my other pocket!" Remember, they're not called "army" for nothing'.

Be extravagant. Do a nightly Skype call to discuss anything you’ve been doing. You can even Skype together as you light your Menorahs every night, or as you open a window on your advent calendar.

Rewrite. Change the words of a popular holiday tune or verse to describe your family. For my family, we'd have to find rhymes for outrageous, talkative, and loyal (of course, royal). You are only limited by your personal tolerance for weirdness.

SIDEBAR: THE SOLSTICE

The winter solstice occurs on December 21 or 22. Every year. It's not something to believe in, like a religious faith. It's an event that happens and has happened every year of your life. The darkness is over! The sunshine is returning! This is my favorite event of the winter. Go druid. Affix leaves to your gonads and run around on a hillside. Just have a party. Turn on every light in your house. Put on suntan lotion on spec.

To me, the solstice is also a reminder of the strange coincidence that allows life to exist on earth--if the earth tilted a little more or a little less, or if it orbited a little closer or a little farther from its star, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here to marvel at ourselves, to tremble with outrage, to cry with sorrow, to feel like the most important thing in the whole universe, to gawk, to wonder, to love. We wouldn't be here to be wacky and then recognize our own wackiness, and then laugh uproariously, and then to reflect on it. I'm glad we're here on our little blue marble in space.

SIDEBAR: KINDNESS ECONOMY

Kindness is one of the few things you can give away that actually enriches you--and as you spend kindness, the amount of kindness in the world actually increases. It's not like spending money with its scarcity--if I have more someone else has less. And you count kindness to any living thing or to our planet itself as kindness. I invite you to join me in promoting the giving of kindness. Here's one way to work it.

1. Consciously plan to do one nice thing for someone, do it, and say to yourself, “This kindness is my gift to [recipient’s name here].” The target of the kindness is not the recipient--the recipient is your loved one for whom you normally buy a commercial gift.

2. Then, write down what you did and send it to the recipient you chose. His or her heart will be warmed with the thought that kindness is increasing and that you have good values!

3. Your kindness doesn’t need to be a deprivation or a sacrifice. It doesn’t have to entail great planning or expense. And it doesn’t have to cost anything at all.

Your kindness won’t clutter up or pollute our Earth. I guarantee that it will be just exactly the right style, size and color. It will be a gift of your heart that warms the hearts of others. If you plan to give a gift for the holidays this year, make it a gift from the kindness economy.

SIDEBAR: TOURIST DESTINATION LANDFILL

Yes, you can arrange tours of your local landfill for your family, usually by contacting the solid waste authority in your area or the owner of the landfill if it is private. One year I toured the Franklin County Landfill--the largest artificial structure in the state of Ohio. It is acres and acres of garbage...and not garbagy garbage like banana peels and apple cores and chicken bones. Most of the garbage is stuff, just stuff, or stuff that stuff was sold in, stuff that might have been gifts. And much of it is in perfectly good condition. I saw whole buildings dumped into the landfill, not even chunked up much. I saw a huge amount of recyclables. That's what I saw. Ask what I smelled! Ask about the flock of sea gulls that have adapted to living at the landfill because of the good eats. Next, ask what I didn't see--the thousands or millions of cubic yards of buried garbage.

The landfill was fascinating. Turns out, it's not the giant compost pile we are led to believe, in which garbage will gradually biodegrade into mulch. It's more like a series of gigantic Ziploc bags--pockets of garbage hermetically sealed in plastic. The whole landfill is lined with nonporous clay and other materials that ensure that no leakage occurs. In a poem, I refer to the landfill as a huge pile of MREs (the military's "meals-ready-to-eat" bags of food) for future generations. (Future generations refers to your own children and grandchildren--yes, those kids right there.)

OK, so I ranted. But you'll be glad you went if you go.