Whatever goes down in the big, bad budget, Christmas is still going to happen and we're still going to celebrate it. Of course, it does turn into a bit of a financial and ethical quagmire on occasion. When it comes to Christmas cards for example, should you be sending e-cards instead of paper ones, thus doing your bit to help the environment? But working on the assumption that your dearest Great-aunt Kitty does not have access to a computer or that clicking into an online greeting card does not create the same feelgood factor as receiving a handwritten one in the post, the obvious answer is to send a charity Christmas card, supporting a deserving cause.
You could, of course, cut straight to the chase and make a donation directly to whatever the charity of your choice is, but if you're going to be sending cards to your loved ones in any case, everyone benefits. Some charities make and distribute their own cards, some sell via a retailer, and in other cases a third party makes the cards to sell in a shop and a percentage then goes to the charity. You can usually check with the charities themselves to see how much of what you're spending is going to their cause.
During the boom years, Christmas was taken as a barometer of the nation's ability to spend. Now, with tightened purse strings putting a curb on what we used to call retail therapy, it's nice to think that you can still help someone else by spending €5 on a packet of cards.
Comments are moderated by our editors, so there may be a delay between submission and publication of your comment. Offensive or abusive comments will not be published. Please note that your IP address (204.236.235.245) will be logged to prevent abuse of this feature. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by our Terms and Conditions
del.icio.us
digg
Facebook
Google
Subscribe to The Sunday Tribune’s RSS feeds. Learn more.
Get off to a profitable sports betting start today at sportsbetting.co.uk
Print
E-mail
