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Submitted by Alison Storm on December 18th, 2008

I have a small circle of high school friends. Even though we live in five different states we work hard to keep in touch. We exchange phone calls and e-mails and birthday cards. We’ve forked over big bucks for bridesmaid dresses for each other’s weddings. We’ve spent large chunks of our paychecks on plane tickets to Vegas for our annual gathering. And every year we buy each other Christmas presents, carefully wrap them up, and ship them off as another way to show our friendship.

But this year one of girls in this intimate circle (we’ll call her Friend B) decided that with the state of the economy our decade-old tradition of exchanging Christmas gifts should be halted. Friend B’s e-mail read,

‘the main thing that I wanted to bring up is the gift exchange thing. I know that every year I feel very strapped financially and I also don’t have as much time to shop for great gifts as I would like… so I was thinking that maybe we should not exchange gifts this year due to all of the economic strain and all of us having not as much free time as we would like. What do you think about this idea? If you still really want to do the gift thing let me know, but I will just have to do small items.’ READ THE REST…

Submitted by The Bargainist on December 4th, 2008

It’s my favorite Christmas tradition. Every year a group of friends and I “adopt” residents in our community who are overcoming drug and alcohol addictions. They are chronically homeless people who now—after many tough years—have their own apartments. It’s a unique program aimed at breaking the cycle of homelessness in our city by giving people apartments rent-free as long as they stay off drugs and earn an income.

To show our support of these men and women, we each select a name and fulfill the items on their Christmas wish list. They don’t ask for iPods or cashmere sweaters. They ask for cleaning supplies and socks. We try hard to give them what they want since our presents may be the only ones they receive. But sometimes we miss the mark. READ THE REST…