Buy a Buffalo!

By Amy Dickinson

Beyond the religious significance of Christmas, I have always loved its tacky excesses: the plastic decorations, chain-store elves and TV spectaculars that feature talking reindeer, children's choirs and ads with Santa flying down a hill on a Norelco razor. But a couple of years ago, I had a midnight epiphany at Wal-Mart. Weighed down by sporting equipment and plastic toys, I realized that I had bought more gifts than anyone on my list could want or need and that it wasn't good for their spirits--or mine.

A poll released this month by the Center for a New American Dream shows that such holiday breakdowns are more common than I thought. Among the 1,015 who were surveyed, 58% are trying to "reconnect with the joyfulness of the holiday," by cutting down on their consumption. It is counterintuitive at this time of year to concentrate on doing less for our families, but redirecting that holiday energy offers real rewards. Families that manage it will have fewer toys but more time, less debt and more satisfaction.

Fortunately for parents, most kids build their lives around friendships and understand sharing in a way that many grownups have forgotten. The holidays are an ideal time for all of us to remember what we receive by giving--not just to friends and relatives but also to those less fortunate. Many churches and charities put up "angel trees," where a child can donate a gift earmarked for a specific needy kid. Your child will have good ideas about what a kid his age would want; let him choose and wrap a gift to donate. In lieu of a teacher gift, write your teacher an appreciative note and let him know that you have donated a book to a local shelter or Toys for Tots in his honor.

The Salvation Army welcomes donations into its seasonal kettles, but it also values volunteers. Two hours of your family's time ringing bells beside a red kettle could be the most rewarding trip to the mall you've ever made. If you don't know which charities are active in your area, check out the website run by the AOL Foundation at helping.org Type in your zip code and your interests, and some of the 630,000 charities in the database will pop up. Volunteering arrangements and dollar donations can be made online. Similar sites are charitableway.com and allcharities.com Shop through the greatergood.com site and at least 5% of the purchase amount will be donated to a designated charity, at no extra cost.

My family's desire to scale back our holiday spending has inspired us to give more homemade presents, resulting in some lumpy knitting projects and a baking experiment that sent the family cat to the emergency room. (He ate the ingredients.)

In the same spirit, we've received some unforgettable presents, such as the water buffalo sent by a cousin. Actually, the beast was donated in our family's name through the Heifer Project International heiferproject.org to a village in the Philippines. That year, after Christmas dinner, we had fun naming our animal, imagining what it looked like, and wondering whether we could get one for our village in upstate New York. The Wal-Mart epiphany and my cousin's generosity had taken us far: the Year of the Water Buffalo stands out as the Christmas when my family finally managed to give as good as we got.

See our website at time.com/personal for more on charities and volunteering. Send Amy an e-mail at timefamily@aol.com