My Favorite Gift to Give

If the kids in your life are anything like the ones in mine, they have every toy under the sun and receive more and more at every birthday and Christmas. If the kids in your life are anything like the ones in mine, they’d love a pet giraffe.

Boy, do I have the solution for you!

Now, I don’t have any children of my own yet, but I have two nephews and a niece, and some of my dearest friends have little ones. I think especially because I don’t have my own, I’m pretty bad at thinking of practical gifts to give. I used to always give little clothes (because they’re so frickin cute) until my sister-in-law revealed that she literally bought no clothes for my niece in her first year, and that my niece only ever wore outfits once.

And of course I’ve been to enough birthday parties where the gifts pile up and after unwrapping the first few, the kids lose interest and the parents graciously move the stack of gifts to the trunk of the SUV never to be seen again. Yeah, we’ve all been there, right?

Well, last year I started googling around for creative gifts for toddlers and came across MY FAVORITE GIFT TO GIVE: ADOPT AN ANIMAL!

The World Wildlife Fund has this great program where you can adopt an animal for yourself or as a gift for someone else. Along with donating money to their charitable cause, you can choose a little gift, too–if you want–such as a stuffed animal to match your pet, or a picture. You a get a certificate of adoption, too.

My best friend’s son just turned 4 and loves giraffes. Last Christmas I sent him a “pet giraffe” and it was a huge hit! He has the picture of his giraffe on his nightstand and sleeps with his stuffed animal every night. He named him, and we talk about his giraffe all the time.

This year I’ll be giving animal adoptions to all the kids in my life. A charitable donation is a great way to avoid adding to the clutter most parents already dread dealing with. I know I’m inspired by Cat in her parenting minimalism and hope to follow in her footsteps when the time comes for me to have children.

I also noticed that a lot of local zoos have animal adoption programs (like at The Audubon Zoo). I like these, too, because you can later gift MY SECOND FAVORITE GIFT IDEA–AN EXPERIENCE–such as tickets to the zoo or a natural history museum.

Let’s not forget how charitable donations can help out come tax season!

Thanks to Kirsten and her post on giving charitable donations as gifts for reminding me that I wanted to share this with you. 🙂

 

Note: This is not a sponsored post because… I don’t know how to do that hahaha