Gift cards also are great when you know your recipient has a need but you don’t know what they already have. Are they working on their house? Get a gift card from Lowe’s or Home Depot. Need clothes for a new trip? Plenty of places there.

Keep in mind that scammers love gift cards and have lots of ways to drain them.

Buy them a book

Every year a friend and I send each other books for Christmas. Neither of us ships anything, we buy them from online ebook retailers so that the morning of Dec. 25 we each get an email notifying us that we have new books in our libraries.

For many services, you’ll need to know what readers your intended recipient uses and what email address they used to sign up for it, but sending gift ebooks is easy after that. Most ebook retailers, such as Amazon, will have a Buy for Others or Buy as Gift option.

If you don’t have that information there are sites that sell unlocked or DRM-free ebooks such as Smashwords, StoryBundle, LuLu and many others. Science fiction publishers such as Baen Books and Reactor (formerly Tor) also sell DRM-free books. Or you can go to one of the many legal free ebook libraries online and download public domain books your loved ones might like.

Donate to worthy charities in their name

Investigate before donating for holidays

With the season of giving comes fraudsters and charity scams. 7 On Your Side reporter Carissa Lehmkuhl shows how to avoid falling victim.

Fox – 7 Austin

If your recipient has personal interests, or if a specific disease has touched their lives, or if they or someone special to them is a veteran, you can donate in their name to any of the many good charities that can use help.

As an example, are they an animal lover? Consider donating to the Florida Humane Society, or to a local one, or to places like these:

Consider local services or churches, or groups you know your recipient supports (or belongs to). Or you can donate to Feeding America, or United Way Worldwide, or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, or Habitat for Humanity, or the American Red Cross, or the Make-a-Wish Foundation, or many, many more. If you need more suggestions last week Forbes released its 2023 list of America’s Top 100 Charities.

You may want to use your own email or a temporary one when donating, so you don’t add your recipient to a mailing list they don’t want. Check with your employer, some companies match donations to approved charities.

Be sure to check charities at Charity Navigator, which can help you weed out scams and find the organizations where your money actually will go toward help.

Give them a zillion movies

Netflix raises prices for its premium plan

In an effort to bring more revenue, Netflix announced it’s raising the price for its most expensive streaming service to $23 per month in the U.S.

Cheddar – News 12

Most of the major streaming services offer gift subscriptions or gift cards toward subscriptions, and it can be a thoughtful way to say “I’d like you to experience all the wonder in the world,” or possibly, “I’d like you to stop using my login.” Here are just a few of them.

Gift subscriptions: Britbox, The Criterion Channel, ESPN+, Mubi

Gift cards for subscriptions: Apple TV, Crunchyroll, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+

Gift cards that can be used for subscriptions: Amazon Prime,

Buy Amazon gift cards

‘Adopt’ an animal

You can adopt a giraffe in the Central Florida Zoo, or a tiger at ZooMiami. ZooTampa has African Elephants, the Florida Aquarium has penguins, and the Brevard Zoo has white rhinos. Unsurprisingly, the Jacksonville Zoo lets you adopt jaguars. All of these locations offer a wide range of animals available for (symbolic) adoption.

No, you don’t get to take your new elephant home with you. But your adoption helps feed and care for them. Each location offers different levels of adoption with each one getting you more personalized stuff. Adoptions include some form of “adoption” papers, fact sheets about the animal and a photo, and some may include tote bags, magnets, discounts on entry or a plush version of your chosen critter.

Or you can care for your very own sea cow with the Adopt a Manatee program from Save the Manatee. You can pick out and choose your specific manatee from Alabama, Blue Spring State Park, Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park, Tampa Bay, the Florida Keys or the rest of the East Coast and membership levels range from $35 (Associate) to $500 (Steward), with increasing amounts of swag.

If you can’t decide on just one animal, consider zoo memberships instead: Brevard Zoo, Florida Aquarium, Jacksonville Aquarium, ZooMiami, ZooTampa.

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