With Thanksgiving, Channukah, and Christmas looming, we’re about to embark on about five weeks of rampant overconsumption. Seeing the families displaced by Katrina, now forced to find homes of their own since FEMA has decided to cut them off early, as well as suffering and hunger across the globe, I have mixed feelings about the holidays. Don’t get me wrong — this is my favorite time of year. But it also makes me incredibly cognizant of the ridiculous amount that we consume — whether it’s on our Thanksgiving dinners, luxurious vacations,  our lavish gift wishlists, or, as one story in today’s New York Times reveals, spending $27,000 on Dolce & Gabbana dresses for our daughters to wear to their Bat Mitzvah parties, while forgetting about the (far) less fortunate — in the face of others’ suffering.

So I’ve done a little research and discovered some ways to celebrate the season by giving more socially conscious gifts. For example, Network for Good, a website that accepts online donations for thousands of different charities, sells non-traditional gift baskets. That is, a pre-selected handful of organizations geared toward a specific area, such as education, animals, health, families in need, children, and hurricane recovery, that the gift giver’s donation gets divided up among. Not a bad idea for all of those hard-to-shop-for teachers an animal lovers (amongst others). Sure, it’s not a gift that the person you’re making the donation in honor of can use, per se, but let’s be honest: Most of us have a lot of “stuff,” plenty of which gets used once or twice, if ever. Why not give a gift that both you and the person you’re shopping for can feel good about — while making the season a little less difficut for someone else?

Of course, if you’re indecisive or don’t know which charities the person you’re shopping for would like to support, JustGive.org offers Charity Gift Certificates, which allow the recipient to select which charity or charities he or she wants to support.

Of course, these ideas don’t just have to be limited to the December holidays. There are people in need year-round. As I was pleasantly surprised to discover from my research, JustGive.org has a wedding registry, where the soon-to-be-wed and soon-to-be-committed can select charities that they’d like their friends and family to donate to in honor of their special day. This isn’t just a good idea for the couple that already has a lot of stuff. It’s also a good idea for any couple because, as the Jewish tradition of the groom breaking a glass at the wedding reminds us, even while the couple experiences great joy, there are plenty of others whose pain and sadness we cannot forget.

There are, of course, dozens of other ways you can give. But I’m guessing that none of those (or these) will appear on most wishlists this year. Why not change that? Go ahead, give a little …

Laura Nathan-Garner