Chrissie Swan doesn’t think much of the Kris Kringle.
In fact, the radio host has dubbed the popular gift exchange practice the “great landfill experiment”.
“It’s just rubbish every single year,” Swan told The Herald Sun.
The media personality’s major problem with Secret Santa is the low budget often set by the organisers of present-giving circle.
“If you cap a present at $20 or $30, which is what we do at the workplace, it really limits what sort of quality stuff you can get,” the 43-year-old said.
“That’s why you find rubbish to come in under the budget.”
Rubbish is right. According to CARE Australia, which Swan is an ambassador for, Australians will waste $179 million on unwanted Kris Kringle gifts this Christmas.
And yet despite the likelihood of giving – and receiving – an unpopular present this year, there’s no getting out of a Kris Kringle, as the mum-of-three pointed out.
“You have to (engage in it) — what sort of grinch would you be if you said, ‘No, I’m not going to do it’?”
Luckily, Swan and CARE Australia have suggested a solution that we can all feel good about: make your gift a useful item for someone in a developing country.
Instead of a mug or a hand lotion set for Karen in sales, buy a goat for a family in Africa, or a backpack for a child in Indonesia.
“If you gave someone an option on an automated finger or a goat for a village, I would say one-hundred per cent of people would go for the goat, particularly at this time of the year when we just have this influx of stuff,” Swan said.
“I think it’s very easy with our lovely lives to forget about other people, that have for their entire lives lived with 95 per cent less than what we’ve always had.
“Not everybody can go and see it first-hand so it’s up to charities like CARE to try and gently remind people.”
To find out more or buy a CAREgift this Christmas visit the website.
Top Comments
I wouldn't give a charity gift to anyone who hadn't expressly asked for one. What does the recipient get out of a donation gift? The knowledge that someone else's money has gone to a charity they didn't choose...but in their name? That doesn't seem like much of a gift to me. A gift is more than just spending money and that's really the only thing a donation gift has in common with a traditional gift.
I'm not anti-charity at all. When I can donate, I happily do. But I choose my own charities and I donate in my own name. I don't choose charities for other people and donate in their names.
Very little "charity" goes to the intended recipients. The majority of the money goes to administration, wages, advertising, new computers every year, frivolous things like you would not believe! I and others i know have seen what really goes on with these help starving third world kids type charities, and it's shocking.