Christmas gifts

Christmas is a great occasion to gather our close family and friends and enjoy eachother's company on the darkest month of the year. Despite my lack of faith, such a special occasion, which happens so rarely in a world where everybody is working all the time, deserves to be embraced.

Yes, even all the laim traditional songs, movies, and decorations. After we grow up, there's no such event that brings back this amount of warmth and familiarity, resembling our younger days eagerly waiting for Christmas' Eve.

Curiously, receiving gifts was one of my least enjoyable moments of Christmas. On second thought, this might have started when clothes took the place of toys. I would rather not get anything than something I disliked, privilege kid sctik, no discussion. I have a very peculiar taste, and even nowadays I take ages buying clothes, which by choice I don't do often, and resort to only acquiring items that I really, really fancy.

Although I very much enjoy the sensation of giving gifts to my loved ones, the search is always daunting. What do they actually need or want? Nowadays, everybody has everything they need and more. Supposedly, the gesture of giving is the most important part, but years of being a very ruthless judge on the receiving end have turned me into a very thoughtful giver. Luckily, I focus on my strengths and choose to gift tech-related products. Or even asking the future owner what they wish to receive for Christmas.

Another aspect that I dislike about gifting is the dark side of "the gesture is the most important part". I feel that in this consumerist day and age, this has been instilled in a not-so-favourable way. People now see fit to gift almost anything, not worrying if the gift would be a burden to the [receiver] or just an unintended waste.

I've thought about gifting stocks or something that would not only benefit the receiver momentarily but also in the long term. Everybody is looking forward to retiring (either for good, or by reducing their work hours), so certainly some financial security could aid that, since money is the first culprit to delay this so awaited moment. Unfortunately, I have yet to find the best way to achieve this.

That's where charity comes in. I believe contributing to certain higher causes to be worthy. There are certain aspects of society that don't abide by the UN declaration of human rights, the UN General Assembly Resolution 76/300, or other similar statements. So it entails to each of us to contribute to help eliminate such issues. This can either be through direct intervention - such as activism, or indirect - such as giving to charity. Despite finding most charities, a facade of bad resource management disguised with a coat of higher cause/calling, there are still a few charities that fall within my criteria of: worthy cause, resources correctly employed, and open books and third-party audited.

These are currently the following. Organised by cause.

Children:

• Malaria Consortium
• UNICEF
• Give Well
• Medecins Sans Frontieres

Environment:

• Planet Wild
• Mossy Earth
• Paul Watson Foundation
• World Land Trust

Society:

• European Digital Rights
• David Graeber Institute

Free-speech:

• EFF
• International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
• Freedom Press
• International Federation of Journalists

Free-knowledge:

• Internet Archive
• Khan Academy

This year, instead of receiving gifts, I’ve decided to share the above list with everyone who has asked me what I want for Christmas, even going out of my way to share it with the usual gifters. It warms my heart to know that potentially meaningless gifts (not intentions, as stated previously) are replaced with such great causes, picked by me according to my current inclinations.