Cut holiday costs with charitable class

I suspect most holiday cost-cutting measures people do this season will be understood by a public still reeling from the financial shock and awe rattling from Wall Street to the Nikkei. However, much of the pleasure of gift-giving comes from that sense of generosity you feel when you're recognizing the other people in your life. You don't want to feel cheap. One way to enrich a gift that costs you less, is to offer something that goes a little farther. Inject some charity into your gift giving. It's a trend that's been catching on for years. I've seen it at weddings and even some children's birthday parties. It was even a Seinfeld episode once. More and more, people are offering cards that say "In lieu of gifts, we've made a donation to a charity of our choice." There are a lot of different ways to do this and this season there will be a lot of charities hurting as badly as everyone else in this economic downturn.

Here's some ideas on how to do this:

• You can flat out give to charity instead of to friends and send them a classy note wishing them a happy holiday in lieu of a gift.
• You can send them a holiday e-mail instead of a mailing cards and indicate that you'll be donating some of the money you save on cards and postage to charity.
• Instead of paying for a holiday party at your school or office, you can organize a group to volunteer at a charitable organization for a day and celebrate together at the event.

If you have any more ideas, please leave a comment below.