Christmas is the season of giving and should be taken as an opportunity to make a positive difference in a struggling person’s life. Many of us are fortunate enough to associate Christmas with gifts and indulgence but the sad reality is that this isn’t the case for everyone.
Rough sleepers and vulnerable individuals find the festive period especially difficult due to the cold weather, seasonal illnesses, and loneliness. You can help make someone feel loved and valued this holiday season by taking a few simple, charitable steps.
Donate to Charity
Donating to charity can be perceived as a deeply religious practice with each faith contributing to charity in their own way. For example, members of the Muslim community use a Zakat calculator to determine how much money they are required to give to charity. Despite this, Christmas is not the religious festival that it once was.
Christmas is now a cultural holiday as opposed to a religious one and so, regardless of your beliefs, goodwill should influence you to donate during the festive season. This is very achievable as Christmas approaches as charity buckets become increasingly common during this time.
Invite Someone to Dinner
Christmas is all about bringing family and friends together, but some people are not lucky enough to have this. If you know of someone spending Christmas alone, invite them to join your dinner table to make their day a little less lonely. Christmas dinner is not solely about food, it is instead about the preciousness of company.
Christmas Jumper Day
Christmas jumper day is now a yearly event that schools and workplaces use to raise money for charity over the festive period. The idea is that students, teachers, and employees all come in wearing a Christmas jumper and pay money to charity for doing so.
Do a Reverse Advent Calendar
Not all advent calendars are about small treats hiding behind cardboard windows. A reverse advent calendar is the gathering of dried and tinned food, clothing, and hygiene and toiletry products. This is all then boxed up, wrapped, and sent to the needy to eliminate a bit of struggle over the Christmas period.
Donate Toys
The most exciting Christmas prospect for children is new toys. Despite this, so many children come from families who can so seldom afford food, never mind toys. So many children are made to believe that they haven’t been well behaved enough to receive gifts from Santa. This is absolutely heart breaking and innocent children should not be made to bear this guilt and despair. You can convince a child that they have been good this year by donating toys this year.
Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen
Though soup kitchens are not exclusive to the holiday season, their importance grows during the festive period. This is because it is much colder and seasonal diseases are rifer, meaning that people are more desperate for a hot meal and require extra nutrition. Similarly, people are more prone to loneliness at this time of year so soup kitchens are a way to create a social space wherein lonely individuals can dine together.
Give Food to Rough Sleepers
Everyone deserves a meal on Christmas, particularly those who have struggled on the street all year round. You could box up some of your Christmas dinner and deliver it to rough sleepers so that they too can indulge in a delicious festive meal. Not only will this satisfy their stomachs, but it will fill their hearts. Christmas is all about spreading positivity and making changes to people’s lives for the better.