Are you feeling the squeeze, or are you just afraid of it? Have you put your cash in a mattress? Lost your job? Has your neighbor? Are you worried? Pulled inward? Can’t move for fear of making the wrong move?

There is a way to turn the free fall nightmare into a flying dream.

G I V E

Listen, people, we are milk-fed on prosperity. Even the poor who grow up on food stamps and government help, wearing hand-me-downs and going to crumbling schools, in Western societies we live in abundance. There is enough for everyone.

This is not an article that will tell you how to live frugally till the financial plummet has stopped. That is a different list of tips. This one tells you how to GIVE BIG when you think you have to ball up and not come out of the house till it’s over.

On the contrary. Open your hearts. Sit down and strap in. We’re going for a ride.

The best Christmas I ever had, I didn’t receive a thing. Nothing that was bought and sold, wrapped and then unwrapped, worn or shelved or placed on the wall.

The best Christmas I ever had was the year after my brother died. I was 17. The grief was palpable; my family couldn’t speak to each other. It’s possible it was just me who couldn’t speak. However it happened, I remember the silence.

My step-mom was the hub of a PTA program that provided clothes and shoes to kids who came to school in need, so she was well connected to both families in need, and streams of donations. This Christmas Eve, my house was busy and quiet. My mom had found three families who would not have Christmas that year because they were broke. No dinner, no gifts.

Humble Gratitude

So, two of my high school friends came over and helped me gift-wrap toys and clothes in my room, while my mom and dad and little brother sorted food cans and turkeys and household goods in the kitchen and living room. We had these big long boxes that came with the food we ourselves received on some kind of assistance every month. That night we filled those boxes with presents and food for people we had never seen, three families we imagined in our heads as we prepared for them a Christmas they would not have had otherwise.

Being 17, I was embarrassed, a teenager after all. Would we be robbing these people of their dignity to show up on their doorstep and give them boxes of food and wrapped gifts the night before Christmas? Would they hate us because we saw their vulnerability and sadness, and even shame at not being able to provide for themselves?

But we packed into the station wagon with the boxes, and drove to one house, then the next. Three houses, my mom knocked on the door, light poured onto the porch, my dad shook the other dad’s hand. The big awkward boxes went from our hands to theirs. I glimpsed the kids in their living rooms looking out the door at strangers. The moment was short. The mom would hug my mom, all would nod and then we ducked out. No ceremony, just humble gratitude. Deep thanks. And a feeling of riches none of us would have dreamed on the night before Christmas in a poor part of town like ours.

It was over. We drove home. Went to bed. Woke up to Christmas in our house. But our celebrating had already been done. Quietly, diligently, the night before. We were satisfied and filled as full as our broken hearts were going to fill that year. There was something bigger than us, almost as big as the loss of my brother. Receiving through giving. Surviving loss by giving. Giving when we knew there was nothing we could give but a hand to a few families we had never met, but who had fallen on hard times. We had been getting to know about hard times.

I’m here to tell you that even when you think you have nothing, you have something to give. Right now, when the world is gasping in fear at financial doom, right now is the time to give. So, take a breath. Open up. And give. Expand. Radiate.

Give what? Give how?

Get creative. Consider who lives in your town, your neighborhood and what folks may need. What do you need? Heat, food, money for bills?

• Donate to seniors who have trouble paying their winter energy bill.
• Organize a neighborhood clothing drive. Get rid of what you never wear. Let go of one thing you really love.
• Give the donations to a domestic violence shelter.
• Take the family, enroll your neighbors, and spend one hour collecting cans and household goods from nearby neighborhoods, door to door.
• Give the donations to an organization that supports families with parents in the hospital or out of work.
• Clean out your junk drawers and donate notebooks, pens, pencils, paper to schools.
• Get into your community and notice how much you have…emotionally, spiritually, physically.
• Set your intention. Listen to your calling. And give of the rich resource that you are. Even if you are so broke you are on the receiving end of charity.

We all have something to give. Now is the time to give it.

“Love is the Gift” Holiday Challenge:

DON’T BUY GIFTS
As a culture of consumers, how do we get through the holidays in a financial freeze? How do we show our love, without bestowing presents on people? Remember that LOVE IS THE GIFT.

• Get your family and friends together and serve food at a shelter.
• Get together, bake cookies, casseroles, split firewood, put together a box of goods, and give it to a family of your choosing. Make the contact. Be the gift yourself. Then go home and sip coffee together and be in the presence of that love.
• LOVE IS THE GIFT. Instead of buying a product, give to a charity in your loved one’s name, in your family’s name.
• Get everybody in your family together and pool tuition or book money for the college students in the family.
• Instead of a holiday gift exchange, throw a holiday gratitude party: Each person commits an act of charity, and then comes to the party to tell the story of what they did. Sharing that story is the gift itself.
• Gather your circle of friends and bestow dinner and charity on one in the group who has had a difficult year.

It feels so good to receive the abundance of charity in action, whether doing it, hearing about it or, when in need, receiving it.

Get creative, and if you still can’t think of how to give, give ME a call and I will help you brainstorm. I promise you riches.

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Photo courtesy of clarameetsworld