Your talent is valuable– make it a gift

By Janice Gaston

Journal Reporter

from the Winston-Salem Journal Holiday Guide

For some of us, the joy of the holiday season is tempered by the hassle and the expense of shopping for gifts. We dread fighting the crowds in the stores and getting caught up in traffic. We hate watching the bills pile up and dread getting our January credit-card bills.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

After making a few choice purchases, think about giving of yourself — your strengths and talents, all wrapped up in a bow. Make coupons for your services and present them with a nice card, and your shopping is done.

• Can you sew? Offer a day’s worth of hemming and repairs. Most families have a pile of clothing with zippers that need replacing, hems that need to be taken up or let down and rips that need closing.

• Are you a good cook or baker? Promise to cook a special dinner for a family or to bake a child’s birthday cake.

• Is organization your strength? Offer to help a friend clear out a closet or put a home office in order. Sometimes just having an unbiased observer around to offer suggestions is all it takes to help people get rid of things that they don’t need.

• A gardener could offer to come up with a landscaping plan or to spend an afternoon pruning and repotting houseplants. If your talents are limited to wielding a weed eater and pushing a lawn mower, offer a session or sessions of lawn care. Or a promise to rake leaves and clean out the gutters next fall.

• If you are handy with a camera, promise to document a child’s first year or a milestone event. If computers and technology are your thing, promise to help a technologically-challenged friend or relative set up and learn to use that new laptop or cell phone.

• Do people always rave about your beautifully-wrapped gifts? Offer to wrap Christmas or birthday presents. Are you known for your beautiful penmanship? Give the gift of addressing placecards or envelopes for a party.

• Does someone on your list take special pride in his ride? Offer to give the car a super-duper wash and wax. Or if you’re mechanically inclined, offer to change sparkplugs, oil and filters.

• Most of us would appreciate having an extra hand around on cleaning day. Volunteer to lend that hand and be sure to take on an especially onerous chore, such as dusting. Offer to do a family’s laundry for a week or to polish off the pile of clothing waiting to be ironed.

• For some people, getting out can be a chore. Promise to spend a day running errands for them or offer to do their grocery shopping once a week for a month.

• Parents of young children and caretakers of the sick and elderly are often dying to get out, but they need someone to stay home. Be that someone. Offer to lend a hand so they can go out to dinner or to a movie.

• If you are handy with tools, you might be able to give some of the best gifts of all. Almost everyone has something that needs fixing — a squeaky step, a torn screen, a loose doorknob. Tell them you will show up, toolbox in hand, and put things to right.

Now, those are our ideas. If you think about what you can do and what your friends and family need, you can probably come up with other ways to give of yourself. Your gifts will be “green” because you won’t be buying a bunch of stuff that nobody needs, and the paper you use to make the coupons can probably be recycled.

And think of the time and money you will save!

Janice Gaston can be reached at 727-7364 or at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).