Teaching to Give - The Invisible Gift

About this time last year, I received an e-mail from my daughter-in-law: “Please, we want to cut back on the gifts for the kids this holiday season. They get way too much stuff. It’s almost obscene.”

Not buy three, four, or maybe five gifts per grandchild? This was going to be a test of my self-control. But while I was mulling over which items on my list I could possibly delete, a thought came to me. While I could still give each grandchild a special something for Christmas — this wasn’t complete cold turkey — maybe this cutting back would provide a way to introduce my grandkids to the best part of Christmas: giving to those who are really in need of gifts.

Talking with my son who had recently been in Uganda and seen firsthand the desperate need that existed there, I decided that the concept of cutting back should go two ways. So I asked him, for my Christmas present, to arrange for 100 mosquito nets to be sent to the Ugandan village he had visited.

When I opened my beautifully wrapped box from his family on Christmas Day, there was nothing inside except a card, wishing me a Merry Christmas and reporting that the 100 nets had been sent. All the grandchildren gathered around, turning the box upside down and inside out, convinced that there had to be something in there besides a note. They felt bad for me, convinced I had been cheated — indignant that Uncle Todd had, in the words of my 6-year-old granchild, given me an “invisible gift.” They were even more confused when I told them it was the best Christmas gift I’d received in years.

When I told the grandkids that my “invisible gift” was going to protect 100 kids their own age from being bitten by deadly mosquitoes, they wanted to know more, which, of course, was the whole point. So, after all their gifts were unwrapped, tried on, played with, and sorted out, we headed for a computer to search for information on Uganda. We found amazing pictures and vivid descriptions of the country and its problems at the Save the Children Web site. The fact that kids their own age die from diseases like malaria — the risk of which could be dramatically minimized with a simple net over a bed at night — didn’t seem right to even the youngest. And they wanted to know how they could help.

I promised that the next Christmas we would extend the “invisible gift” concept to all of them. So this year, they will find a pretty nifty present from Grandpa and me under the tree, but they also will be able to pick out their own “invisible gift” on Christmas Day. There are a number of Web sites for them to browse and decide what it is they want to get as their “invisible gift.” To help in their selection, they can watch videos that illustrate the problems and the possibilities in the different geographic areas. Oxfam offers, for example, a water purifier that will help reduce childhood mortality through safe, clean water or, what will undoubtedly appeal to my 3-year-old grandson, a large can of worms that will help enrich and prepare a small plot of land for planting. Heifer International offers gifts such as seeds and a set of tools for a kid to grow and then sell his produce at a farmers’ market here in the U.S., or a water buffalo that will provide milk and fertilizer in Tanzania. And through Save the Children, my granddaughter can help a girl her own age attend school for a full year in Latin America.

Will they consider this their best Christmas gift? I’m not sure of that. Since it’s an intangible, it will have a lot of competition. But I believe I have given my grandkids something that won’t end up in the back of their closet or the bottom of the toy box in a few months and maybe, just maybe, it’ll be something they’ll remember forever.