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You are here: Home arrow Articles arrow Everything else arrow Real Christmas Spirit - Charity Fund instead of Christmas Cards

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Real Christmas Spirit - Charity Fund instead of Christmas Cards

Written by Cab

Christmas is coming! As are all of the greetings cards. But don't get caught in the trap of sending a huge number of pointless cards to people you work with, when there's a better, more 'Christmassy' option!

Here's a little challenge for you. I challenge you to turn the whole process of wishing people a Merry Christmas into a positive thing.

Think about that for a moment. How many people do you say 'Merry Christmas' to? How many of those do you really about? Half? Quarter? Now, how many people in your workplace are going to send you Christmas cards? How many are you going to send? And how much is that going to cost you all? Isn't it a bit wasteful?

I propose that we do away with as many of these pointless greetings and frivolous greetings cards as possible. Downsize your seasons greetings! And up-scale your real Christmas spirit. Get a big bit of paper (A3, A2, larger, depending on how many people you work with) and stick it to a wall somewhere in your workplace. Decorate it with holly, maybe a bit of tinsel, and write Merry Christmas on it.

Now, find the best person in your organisation who you can leave a collection box with. In my case, it's our receptionist; you might have a guy on a front desk or an admin department. Whoever it is it must be someone up for doing an easy good deed, and willing to look after a collection box (at least during the day) for you. Make up a box, and ask them to look after it. Send an email (or memo, or just go and tell everyone) telling all of your colleagues that instead of sending Christmas cards at work this year, it would be better if they all contributed the cost of said cards to your works Christmas Card fund. And in January, all of the money will be donated to (insert worthwhile cause of your choice here).

Don't stop there; anyone who you can email or wish merry Christmas in person to doesn't need a Christmas card. Tell each one of them that you're donating the price of a stamp the charity of your choice, and tell them that in not getting a card they've personally raised that much money for your charity. And if a few work colleagues do that too, then before long the grand total you raise will start looking pretty good.

I've been doing this for years; we've sponsored a child in a developing country, sponsored a tiger in a reserve in Thailand, and for the last three years our IT support chap has got right into the spirit and matched our total, which has been donated to the International Red Cross.