Did you know that during the Christmas season alone, Americans spend, on average, $600 BILLION dollars? Holy cow!! That’s a lot of money! I didn’t even write out the zeros because I wasn’t sure how many there were supposed to be ; )! Ha! Anyway, Christmas is such a fun season to give + to receive (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE both of these things!!), however $600 billion dollars seems a littttlllee excessive to me!! Does anyone else agree?!

A nationwide movement called Advent Conspiracy poses this question, “What was the one gift you remember getting for Christmas last year? What about the fourth gift? Do you remember that one?” They then proceed to talk about how we probably don’t remember all of the gifts we received because they weren’t necessarily things we wanted or really, truly needed. I think this is the case for a lot of people around the holiday season … giving just because we feel obligated, or sharing a list of gift ideas with others even though we might not actually need anything on that list. *REMEMBER, I love giving gifts + receiving them, my point here is absolutely not to shame gift giving or deter people from doing it!!

My point is to ask you to consider changing things up … just a tiny, little bit.

The Advent Conspiracy Movement is all about changing our mindsets just a bit, + shifting our holiday giving away from the massive consumerism tendencies we often find here in America + instead making an intentional, honest choice to give instead to those who may really, truly need it.

For example, maybe your family could talk about this idea + all agree together that everyone is going to get one less gift this Christmas + instead, the money that would have gone towards those gifts is going to be given to help fight the global water crisis. Or perhaps your extended family could decide that you all don’t need to get everyone a gift this year + instead you exchange names, everyone gets a little nicer gift for the one person they chose, + the rest of the money is given to help fight child labor + human sex-trafficking.

If a vast majority of families chose to join the conspiracy in some way, shape, or form this holiday season, can you IMAGINE the impact it would have on the world? Let’s spread the word.