This holiday season the average American consumer plans to spend $791.10* (that’s about $200 billion dollars nationally). And your kids are, of course, excited to be the beneficiaries of this windfall and get a boatload of presents, which is — let’s face it — pretty much the meaning of Christmas (and Chanukah) for most of them (and us).

I’m no Grinch, but what if each of us were to donate to charity a mere 1% of our intended expenditures? That would amount to $2 billion dollars. And what might that teach our kids?

That’s why I’d like to encourage you to sign on to our PROJECT GOOD HEART, in which you donate to charity the dollars that you would have spent on one present for each of your kids.

Here’s how PROJECT GOOD HEART works:

1. Explain to your kids (over the age of 5-6 years or so) that instead of one present you would have given them, they are to chose a charity to donate what that present would have cost.
2. Talk about the reasons for charity and for empathy towards people less fortunate (“Remember when we saw those people on TV who lost their homes?”).
3. Discuss with them the various kinds of charities and how they help those less advantaged in many ways.**
4. Ask them what kind of support they would like to give: for food, shelter, clothing, medicine, toys, books, etc? For victims of disasters or war or for the chronically poor? For families? Kids? Communities? Endangered animals? The environment?
5. Encourage putting themselves in another shoes: “If were unlucky and lost a lot of the things we now have or we were victims of a storm or a war, how would you want others to help us?”
6. Guide the discussion: “Sure, Billy, buying Twinkies for a lot of kids is a great idea and would make them happy for a short minute, but can you think of other ways to better help the disadvantaged with the cost of your present?”
7. But in the end, it’s their charity. Let them choose.
8. On Christmas or Chanukah, put a card in a nicely wrapped gift box that says, “X dollars donated by Billy to the ABC charity, where it will be used to ___. Thanks, Billy!”

Perhaps, one day, when the X box is rusting in the basement, these will endure as the presents that your child best remembers and appreciates as having taught them the true meaning of Christmas and Chanukah.

Logo by my colleague, friend and collaborator on PROJECT GOOD HEART, Jack Maypole, MD — a fabulous pediatrician and brilliant cartoonist.

* The data comes from the National Retail Federation’s 2006 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey
** In case you need some info on charities, here are some good web sites to guide your discussion and help make a choice:

Related Topics:

• (Transcript) Naughty or Nice: Kids at the Holidays
• Don’t Make Holidays A Ho-Ho-Horror

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