Writer Unboxed

’Tis the season in which we’re bombarded with ideas for how best to demonstrate to those nearest and dearest to us our feelings of love and benevolence. Television ads would have you believe that Christmas just isn’t Christmas without a 72-inch flat-panel hi-def TV, a five-carat diamond pendant, a Lexus with a big red bow. Magazines tout pricey watches, bottles of imported vodka, fur coats, and designer handbags. And for the kids on your list, how about a Playstation (never mind that you might have to kill someone to get it) or a mini-Hummer?

No, this isn’t one of those crotchety columns about how the holidays were so much purer and less commercial when I was a kid—though it’s true that they were. But it is about trying to find a way to make the season meaningful when you haven’t got a lot of cash to spare.

This Christmas, I find myself on a tighter-than-usual budget, not just where family and friends are concerned, but charity as well. In recent years I’ve made contributions to the local food bank and toy drives, the Salvation Army bell ringers, Coats for Kids. This year, I simply don’t have the means to give as generously as before.

To that end, I found myself last weekend sorting books in a chilly warehouse, helping local non-profit group Literacy Austin prepare for its annual used-book sale, Book Fest, to be held in the spring. For a writer, there’s little that’s more difficult to comprehend than the inability to read—not only novels or newspapers, but help-wanted ads and housing applications, a child’s homework, the instructions on a bottle of medicine. Literacy Austin is dedicated to just that—helping adults to become literate not for pleasure (though we hope that will come, too) but for the ability to manage the most basic details of their lives. The organization offers tutoring and ESL and computer classes, funded primarily through grants and donations, the book sale, and a team Scrabble tournament. All of this is accomplished via a small but tireless staff and a team of volunteers who teach the classes, help put together the fundraisers, give up chunks of their weekends to sort books.

Admittedly, asking someone like me to sort books is a little like asking a sugar junkie to manage a candy store. I and my fellow “word nerds” do it not just for the good it will bring the organization, but for the thrill of getting our hands into all those boxes of donated books. The warehouse echoes with shouts of laughter and surprise as we discover rare tomes, old favorites, new ones with titles so crazy we can’t imagine how they ever got published in the first place. (For these, we have a special Wall of Shame.)

I wish I could do what one friend is doing this Christmas. Her adult daughter and son-in-law waffled for so long about what she might give them for Christmas, and rejected so many of her suggestions, that she ended up making a donation to Literacy Austin in their name. But my bank balance is a bit skimpy for that. Instead, I’m giving my time and effort, along with the desire to share with those less fortunate a thing that’s essential to me and that I tend on a daily basis to take for granted: the gift of literacy.

My friend Lisa, the development director for Literacy Austin, would flay me alive if I failed to mention their website, www.literacyaustin.org. But there’s bound to be a similar organization near you that could use your input and energy. It may not be as dazzling a gesture, but I can just about guarantee you that the results will last a lot longer (and make the world a better place) than a Lexus. And you won’t have to worry about the goofy red bow.

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