Day 83: The Christmas Card ChallengeIt’s just 5 days to Christmas and I have yet to prepare my Christmas cards. In the past, 2 weeks before Christmas I would sit down each evening for a week and write out 5 or 6 cards a night, preparing a holiday card for everyone on my list so that each of my friends or family have one to place on their mantel for season.Fast forward to my life today – I have a 3 year old! This now becomes a more challenging endeavour. Most nights I fall asleep with him or I am working after he goes to bed. I also realized how much waste holiday cards create and money that could actually be going to a good cause rather than to the post office. This year I have found the perfect combination of time efficiency, environmental savvy and my unending desire to GIVE back to the world in unique and unusual ways. Ways which we could all do.Give 83 / Day 83I went on a Google hunt today for charitable holiday ecards. I was amazed at the choices. There are actual designated sites where you can choose your card and your charity, or even an option to send one card to all the people on your list at the same time. One of the sites I came across was Simple Green World. Just a few days ago they posted, on their blog site, some of their favourite charitable holiday ecards and why. Here are some of the great ideas I got from their site and I am using one as my Christmas card GIVE this holiday season.“Charity ecards combine the spreading of holiday cheer to family and friends with saving the environment from excessive paper card waste, while money gets donated to great charities. It also saves you valuable time and money which is so important at this time of year. Not to mention that any donation is 100% tax deductible. Everyone wins.”1) WFP (World Food Program): Feed people around the world that will go hungry this holiday season2) Variety International: A Children’s Charity. : Support children with special needs and you can send to as many people as you would like to all at once.3) The Giving Buddy: This one is really unique in that you can upload a photo, send it via Facebook or Twitter and choose from over 100 charities to donate to.Because my time is limited and I like to send one card to everyone on my list, I took the option of the bulk send. Variety International holiday cards fit my bill instantly.On an average I estimated it usually costs $2.50 to send a holiday card. I created my list and came up with 35 people I would like to send cards to. That is a total of $87.50. So instead of sending cards that would soon be thrown out I made a donation to Variety International for that amount and I saved a lot of paper and therefore several trees along the way.Please send any suggestion you have for charity holiday ecards. We could use as many giving inspirations as we can to get us through the holiday craziness.Time Commitment: 1/2 hour , versus 5 hours it would normally takeCost: $87.50 the same amount I would have spent on cards went to charity instead Share Article: