Merry Christmas!

Does anyone else feel like it shouldn't be December yet? Just me?

Here in lovely Illinois, we had our first real snow of the year this past week. Even so, it doesn't feel like December yet; I can't believe Christmas is in less than two weeks. I am currently burning a "Balsam & Cedar" Yankee candle to get myself in the Christmas mood, but even that is not really helping.

This year, I only have to buy two Christmas presents (yay for drawing names!) and I am so thankful for that, because:

a. I don't have the energy to shop
b. shopping in the suburbs is INSANE - last weekend, I went to a strip mall nearby, and after driving up and down the aisles, I had to leave because there were no parking spaces - are we still in a down economy? Not according to the crazies at Old Navy. No sort of economic downturn will stop Americans from buying fleece. In the interest of full disclosure, I am currently lounging on the couch in my new, insanely comfortable fleece sweatpants from... you guessed it - Old Navy. So, you know, whatever. I'm a hypocrite, I guses.

When I started writing this post, I didn't mean to turn it into a pitch... I just felt like complaining about how annoying Christmas shopping is, but then I realized I had a golden opportunity - so here it is:

If you are like me, you probably receive many appeals each Christmas, encouraging you to donate to some organization in someone's name - instead of buying them a physical present. If you do feel so inclined to give to this cause, or if you are like me and simply have no desire to brave the malls but still need to buy something for someone :), please consider giving a donation to Water for Shikokho and Just One Person. If you've been reading this blog, you've read these sentiments a million times, but I can't stress enough how important each cause is. Any money you donate will be used to bring clean, drinkable water to those who do not have it, and to educate and empower young girls in rural Kenya.

If you do choose to take advantage of this, simply let me know for whom you're making the donation, and these organizations will send this person a letter to say that a donation has been made in their name. If you inform me soon enough, I will even send a fun Christmas-y note to this person so they have a token of the donation in time for Christmas!

Again, my email address is laurenehaney@gmail.com, and there is much more information about these causes located at:

www.just1person.org

and

http://www.fsdinternational.org/donate/projects/Pape

Like anyone, I enjoy opening presents (I opened - no joke - about 8 presents at my company's gift exchange yesterday), and yes, I suppose buying gifts at the mall helps support the economy blah blah blah and that's important, but I think we tend to give gifts that:

a. you didn't really want to buy and
b. the recipient probably doesn't need and would've been happy without

(that said, I would be completely lost - literally - without my parents' gift of a GPS last Christmas...)

So, if you have to buy a gift for someone but are, like me, fatigued by the idea of having to brave the mall in search of the "perfect" gift that you'll never find, please consider donating to a cause that is meeting peoples' basic human needs.

If you know of any others who:

a. have a lot of people to buy gifts for
b. hate crowds

(sidenote: I don't know why I'm using this abc list method so much today.)

then please direct them to my blog!

I KNOW that this is the time of year when people are looking to donate money. I know this because I recently started working at a company that does fundraising consulting, and I've learned that people give at Christmastime. Maybe that's intuitive... but now I have numbers and stats to back it up, sooo now it's officially a fact. I know you want to give money. As always, contact me for more info. Thanks a million to those of you who have already donated, and if you haven't, thanks anyway for reading my blog :) and I would be so excited if you'd partner with Water for Shikokho and Just One Person to provide some very important human needs! Thank you!