The thought of receiving an ethical Christmas present used to be met with the grim resignation that was otherwise reserved for the seasonal serving of Brussels sprouts.
This year, however, the selection is vast; the presents are more glittering than ever; and a host of original ideas has made charity catalogues fertile shopping ground. As Hilary Blume, the director of the Charities Advisory Trust, says: “You name a charity and it will have its ethical gift guide”. By comparison, the predictable trappings of the high street pale. And you can avoid the crowds, too, by doing it all online.
The Body&Soul Alternative Gift Guide brings you a range of health-related presents, from gorgeous gifts that need no explanation to less customary items — and even animals — that you won’t usually find tucked under the tree. From this year’s star supergoat to sloths in the Brazilian jungle, all wildlife fetishes can be indulged for loved ones. The donation will be explained on a card, which will be followed, with any luck, by a warm glow of satisfaction. (See Getting your goat,below.) And there are plenty of gifts in between. Token gifts from health charities encourage you to buy items at a higher price — and the extra money is donated. In return, the giver gets that priceless feel-good factor — and something to wrap. No wonder public enthusiasm for this style of giving is insatiable.
Just giving
THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL Coffee definitely, chocolate maybe, but footballs don’t usually spring to mind when you think of Fairtrade products. But, along with rugby balls and even beach balls, you can give a Fairdeal Football to a budding Beckham and guarantee a decent wage for producers. Plus, you’ll get everyone out in the garden on Christmas Day.
Buy it from www.fairdealtrading.com; from £9.80
Alternative To keep warm while playing, give someone elbow-reaching Fairtrade fingerless mittens and a hat. These are hand-knitted by a co-operative in Nepal.
Buy it from www.ptree.co.uk; hat £12, mittens £18
COUNTRY CHRISTMAS Hunter Wellies is donating between £15 and £20 (depending on delivery costs) for every pair of coloured boots (gift-wrapped, right) bought directly from the company — it will donate only a tenth of that if you buy them from another retailer. The colour determines the charity: red for the British Lung Foundation; floral for the Royal Horticultural Society, among others.
Buy it from www.giving-welly.co.uk; £50 Alternative Another hot gift for anyone hankering after rustic living is a casserole dish, giving 10 per cent to Breast Cancer Care.
Buy it from www.chasseur.co.uk; from £54
FESTIVE FEASTING Wondering what Elton John and his fiancé David Furnish feast on? You can find out in A Fair Feast, by Vicky Bhogal, a collection of recipes supplied by chefs and celebrities made from Fairtrade ingredients and promoting a healthy diet — give or take a few cookie recipes from the author Margaret Atwood. And by the way, if you’re wondering which one the boys put in, it’s pineapple soufflé, made from Fairtrade pineapples, naturally.
Buy it from Simon&Schuster; £9.99 (proceeds go to Oxfam and the Fairtrade Foundation).
Alternative Assemble your own Fairtrade hamper from treats such as cashew butter and organic champagne truffles. It can be delivered to a friend — or to yourself.
Buy it from www.goodnessdirect.co.uk
Paying your dues
POUR OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS It’s a high price to pay for olive oil, even from the Holy Land, but the extra money goes to Y Care International, the development agency of the YMCA, which provides care and counselling for injured and traumatised young people. Y Care will also plant an olive tree on your behalf in Palestine to replace the 400,000 livelihood-sustaining trees that have been destroyed during conflict.
Buy it from thoughtful.org; £30
Alternative Another nail in the coffin of artery-blocking butter is Palestinian olive oil from Zaytoun, a not-for-profit company that supports Palestinian farming co-operatives in the West Bank.
Buy it from www.zaytoun.org; £5
COSY COMPANION
The “Big Hugs” Bear smells of lavender and has a detachable pouch in his tummy which you can heat in the microwave, re-attach, and then you have the most soothing bedfellow imaginable. For every bear bought, £25 is donated to Marie Curie Cancer Care, which buys an hour of nursing time for someone with cancer.
Buy it from www.thoughtful.org; £30
Alternative If you’re stuck for children’s presents, ecotopia.co.uk has a fantastic range of toys, puzzles and playthings for children, such as these skittles and spinning tops, made from recycled materials and timber grown on abandoned rubber plantations.
Buy it from www.ecotopia.co.uk; skittles £18, spinning tops £1.65.
Joy to the world
ACTING THE GOAT As a nation of animal lovers, it’s not surprising that giving them as presents to the developing world has captured our imagination. Last year, Oxfam had sold 30,000 goats by Christmas Eve. This year, dozens of charities are offering a similar thing but the novelty has not been lost: fast-breeding supergoats have been introduced by Good Gifts, along with cows, camels, ducks and sheep. Oxfam Unwrapped has kept ahead of the game by introducing extra-virile rams to boost sheep numbers across the globe.
Buy it from www.oxfamunwrapped.com; www.farmafrica.org.uk; www.goodgifts.org; www.sendacow.org.uk; www.presentaid.org
Alternative Closer to home, you can buy endangered vulture chicks from the RSPB and help to protect eco-systems and preserve wildlife. For younger champions of the natural world there are wildlife explorer packs, with magnifying bug boxes and binoculars.
Buy it from www.rspb.org.uk
NHS NECKLACE Christian Aid’s online gift guide, Present Aid, encourages you to buy a stethoscope — an invaluable weapon against tuberculosis, a curable disease that kills two million people every year, of which 98 per cent are in the developing world (according to WHO).
Buy it from www.shop.christianaid.org.uk: £7
Alternative Another Present Aid bestseller is a fishing net for families in Mali so they can either sell fish or enjoy a vitamin and mineral- rich source of free food. Buy it from www.present-aid.org; £35
Celebrity donation
RIGHT ON THE MONEY Dressed-up methods of charitable donation, such as animal-buying, are not for everyone. Some might prefer to simply give less expensive presents and then give the money they have saved to charity. Others, traumatised by friends and family not unappreciating their gifts in past years, might scrap presents altogether in favour of a straight donation. Either way, a new website, guidestar.org.uk, based on an American version, will help you to navigate the thousands of registered charities in the UK.
A bit like Google, albeit a worthier version, it provides an encyclopaedia of information including access to annual reports, financial spending, press releases and the specific areas of interest of each charity. It’s a godsend for anyone who wishes to make an informed charity choice and makes the experience more rewarding for all parties.
Check it out at www.guidestar.org.uk
RECYCLING FOR WRAP ARTISTS
Every year we use 83 sq km (20,500 acres) of wrapping paper: that’s enough to cover Hyde Park 33 times. Everyone has their own way of recycling — but what kind of wrapper are you?
THE ECO-CONCERNED wrapper is right to worry. Sellotape is a true greenie’s nightmare. It makes wrapping paper unrecyclable, as do any metallic or glittery components to the design. Put them in your green bin and paper mills will not thank you. Best to use ribbon or string and second-hand paper wherever possible — you can call it vintage if it makes you feel better.
THE CREATIVE will insist on demonstrating his or her artistic prowess by using brown paper, silver spray stencils, scraps of material, unwanted posters, even old newspapers and glossy magazines. But, for the rest of us, it will be enough to buy 100 per cent recycled paper from Tatty Devine (www.tattydevine.com), made by Lisa Jones for London Remade, or Fairtrade paper from naturalcollection.com.
THE PURIST wrapper hates the shoddiness of using paper again. Point him towards John Lewis’s charity selection for paper designed by Jamie Oliver, Betty Jackson and the design team FrostFrench. John Lewis gives 25 per cent of the price of each roll to the designer’s charity of choice.
THE PLANNER pounces on presents not for the reasons that everyone else does but because a wrapping paper design has been spotted that will fit in with his 2010 gift-wrapping colour scheme. I’d normally suggest other tips to the Planner, such as gathering up old Christmas cards to use for present labels next year, but this system is probably already in place.
Getting your goat
Adding to the global goat population has become popular as way of trying to solve the problems in poor countries, but does this really meet the needs of the struggling communities where the bleating hordes are sent? Cynics argue that looking after increased numbers of livestock poses additional problems for impoverished communities — and this is an unwelcome dampener on our annual farmyard-giving extravaganza.
Oxfam answers this criticism by referring to its discussions with local leaders in recipient countries to find out exactly what meets their needs.
“If you buy a goat, calf, donkey or camel, your gift could also be used to fund the livestock most appropriate to the individual community, depending on circumstances and local environment,” says a spokesman.
So your goat could end up being a pig. In which case, why not just donate to the charity? According to the charities, that would miss the spirit of the thing. Although goat-giving is essentially just another vehicle for giving, it is a light-hearted alternative and a refreshing change from reaching for the chequebook.
It is not, however, suitable for everyone. So take heed of the following.
TEST THE WATER FIRST If you know that a friend is longing for an MP3 player, a share in a mango plantation will evidently disappoint. As my friend’s father said after she had painstakingly explained how the Good Gift catalogue works: “But what do I actually get for Christmas then?” To avoid tears under the tree, you could supplement your charitable gift with a conventional one; even if it’s just a little something.
VOLUNTEER YOURSELF If you think these kind of charity donations are a smashing idea guaranteed to leave the recipient with a feel-good glow, suggest that your friends give one to you. At www.oxfamunwrapped.com you can e-mail your own wish list of presents to friends or you can send them your preferred catalogue.
BAH HUMBUG! The charitable donation approach is perfect for tricky customers. The ones who complain about the loathsome chocs-and-socks routine or anyone who holds forth, every year, about the mindlessness of Christmas consumer excess. Even real Scrooges will have to smile at these unusual gifts — through gritted teeth.
