Air Date: Week of December 8, 1995

Transcript

CURWOOD: Your gift ideas keep rolling in, and thanks to everyone for sending them along. So, are you ready? Let's hear some suggestions from Santa's Green Help Line.

MCDERMOTT: Hi, this is Stacy Jo McDermott. I listen to Living on Earth on KALW in San Francisco. And I'm finding that my favorite gift giving during the holidays is to do something for somebody else, specifically like a household chore. I visited my cousin in Seattle over Thanksgiving, and we did plastering holes in the walls. And at Christmas I'm going to be painting my sister's bathrooms in her new house for their gifts.

CURWOOD: And then, for those gifts that keep on giving, you might follow this suggestion.

CALLER: I have 5 granddaughters. I've opened up a savings account for each one. Opening with the amount of $50 and I'll have automatic deduction each payday of $2.50, only 2 dollars and 50 cents. It's all I can afford, but it'll show them that little money can become big money. And Merry Christmas to all of you. Bye.

CURWOOD: Finally, a family that listens to WPSU in University Park, Pennsylvania, that's grown tired of Christmas commercialism, has started a sharing tradition. They identify a local needy family...

CALLER: And totally anonymously do sort of a secret Santa thing and we don't really think of it as necessarily just charitable activity, because our family's Christmas together is to go out shopping for the family. And wrap all the presents together. And then on Christmas Eve deliver them together. And it's been just a wonderful experience. So if sharing this turns someone else on to that idea, I hope it's been useful.