I’ve selected the charities we’ll be supporting for our Christmas Wish List Challenge. In no particular order, this year our budget has been split between the following organizations:

• Edmonton Food Bank
• Second Chance Animal Rescue Society (SCARS)
• Kids Need to Read
• Canadian Association of Medical Teams Abroad (CAMTA)

For those of you who are new to my blog, last week I posted my annual Christmas Wish List. This year it’s a little bit different than usual. Our family has decided to stepping off of the Christmas present treadmill hamster wheel. We will not be buying presents. Instead, we’re taking the money we would have spent on presents and donating it to local charities. We’ve also requested that our friends and family skip buying us presents this year and donate those funds to a charity of their choice as well.

Once the donation has been made we’re asking participants to send us a Christmas card (or comment on this blog post if you’re so inclined) indicating which charity you’ve donated to as part of the challenge. $$ amounts do not need to be disclosed.  I’ll gather up the list of charities people have chosen to support this holiday season and post the list close to Christmas.

Short on funds? Consider donating your time. Many local organizations are desperate for volunteers.

What’s our motivation? In our  not so humble opinion, Christmas has become far too commercialized and people are focused too heavily on what they’re going to get as opposed to what they can give. This me-centric trend has been bothering us. We’re hoping everyone will put a little less under their own tree in order to bring a little joy and light to a stranger.

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