Need a last-minute gift idea that doesn’t require heading out to a crowded mall? It won’t result in any returns or exchanges. Instead of gifts, give cows. Through a group of friends, Rockin’ Rural Women on Facebook, we are raising funds to help Heifer International. Donate here. Cows have nine times the impact on poverty-stricken communities as their offspring keep giving. Heifer International works with communities to give cows that families can milk and provide much needed nutrients and extra income. Additionally, they help install stoves that can burn manure for cooking and heat. I have already donated to Heifer International for Cows for Christmas and will add to my donation on Christmas Day.
With each comment on this post through Christmas Day, I will donate $1 per comment, up to $250 additional to Cows For Christmas. Just comment below on what your favorite Christmas gift is that you ever received. My 1985 Cabbage Patch Doll is still a big memory for me and definitely a favorite childhood Christmas gift.
Love it. Nice job!
Favorite Christmas gift … it’s a toss-up between my Cabbage Patch Doll (named Emmeline Susan) and my Barbie Townhouse (3 stories with an elevator)!! 🙂 Luckily, I still have both! Merry Christmas to you and your family, Katie!
Very neat idea! Our daycare provider decided that, instead of having the kids exchange gifts this year, they would pick out an animal from the Heifer International catalog to purchase to bless others. Thank you for helping to spread that joy! 🙂
Forgot to mention my favorite Christmas gift…last year, when our daughter was celebrating Christmas and New Years with her boyfriend, he proposed. We now have gained a great son-in-law! Not directly a gift to me, but he is a gift to our family!
Great idea! I purchased two families chickens last year, I think it’s a good program.
I loved the handmade Barbie Dream Home my sister and I got one year, and the farm set another year. Excited that we are going to be able to give a cow to a family this year!
Nice work Katie as always! Great idea!
My favorite gift was a red haired Cabbage Patch Kid named Grace.
Think my favorite would be my rocking horse.
My brother has given me a hive of bees before for Christmas… especially twisted since I am the only member of the family allergic to bees. What, he couldn’t give me a duck?
In terms of favorite presents… The metallic green Schwinn bike that was my roadpass for years to come stands out amazingly clear but a close second was a year my mom won something that we all got a part of… so much fun! I may need to write a post about that!
This is a great cause, love giving to Heifer International.
My favorite would have to be an awesome sled I got when I was 9. Too bad we don’t really have that many hills in eastern South Dakota!
A calf…
Favorite Christmas gift? A purple bike when I was little! 🙂
Not to bring bad news but… I stopped donating to Heifer about 5 years ago when they started promoting going meatless to save the planet in their magazine. 🙁 I haven’t given to them since and they published my complaint letter to the editor. I’ve also discouraged others from contributing to them. I’ll see if I can find the issue.
Hadn’t heard that, would like to know the details.
Such a great cause!
Thanks for doing this.
Wonderful! Love this! 😀
A puppy made a pretty amazing gift one year. Merry Christmas all, what a great cause!
amazing
Love this! Will be sharing on my page!
Love this!
❤️ Love this idea! Good work! Cows are always a great gift.
Merry Christmas!
I was in (maybe) 4th grade and I opened a rectangular box…not “big,” but flat and long. It was filled with Barbie Doll clothes that my Mom had sewn…including several very fancy prom dresses and a “Wishek Badgers” cheerleading outfit…remind me to tell you about it, the detail was so amazing I can still remember it (50-some years later). Sheesh, that makes me sound reeeaaallly old~!
Heifer International is such a great organization! Thanks for your generosity!
Your Cabbage Patch kid reference did remind of the dolls I received. I had a regular CPK, then received a preemie, Peter Nelson. He is now my two-year-old’s constant companion. Another favorite doll and Christmas gift was a Gerber baby. My dad made my sister and I wooden cradles to go with our dolls and my mom sewed a blanket, pillow and mattress for them. My kiddos have all played with them.
Thank you for your willingness to bless others.
Great idea! This is the first that I’ve heard of Heifer International. Sounds like a great cause
Sure hope that negative comment doesn’t prove to be true. I’d like to continue to believe in this organization. My best Christmas gift is when my kids are all in church with me!
Santa have me my first cats when I was five years old, and they led me to realize my dream of being a veterinarian. 🙂
Cabbage Patch doll
Last year my brother and father gifted me two hand crafted memory boxes that are unbelievably beautiful. Blew me away. Merry Christmas everyone 🙂
When I was a kid, we went through nearly a decade of poverty. Not homeless, but definitely poor. One year, every gift under the tree was homemade, except one: my copy of Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” To this day, that’s my favorite gift ever.
What a great way to give back. I hope your comment campaign proves successful! One of my best Christmas memories was when the Sega Genesis came out. I always liked to open the small boxes first and save the big ones for last… I opened the #2 game controller first…I can’t describe how excited I was to open that last big box. lol Pure surprise and joy. I hadn’t expected to receive a Sega system, but my parents said I had been “extra good” that year, and they made a last minute decision to get it for me. 🙂
My favorite Christmas gift would have to be the year Mom and Dad gave my brothers and I 4 wheeler. We had so much fun with it.
What a nice idea. Christmas stockings are my favorites
Heifer International does such great work. Thank you for supporting this wonderful organization.
A wooden wagon with red removeable sides. I asked Santa for it and watched tv Xmas morning while sitting in it. I loved it.
It’s a great thing you’re doing. Merry Christmas!
A stuffed dog that I thought I would never get. I still have it today!! Such a special memory for me.
Cabbage Patch Doll definitely stands out!
Frankly, no gift really stands out from my childhood! That is pretty telling. My favorite thing about Christmas is midnight church service we always went to growing up. As a kid, I was so excited to go, but I always fell asleep during the service!
Such a wonderful selfless way to celebrate what the season really is! I hope one day to have my future agricultural classrooms participate in such a wonderful organization. My favorite Christmas gift was our yellow lab Jessie! Thank you for what you are doing and God bless!
When I was five, I asked Santa for a ‘real live puppy’. He delivered my ‘puppy’ early, in Nov, so she wouldn’t have to spend the night on the cold sleigh. She was a 6 month old Irish Setter, She topped my charts for good.
The gift of Eternal Life.
ThE birth of my beautiful wife on Jesus Day before I even knew her
First of all, very cool idea. We need more organizations like them, and I know what it means to have someone help anonymously. Now, here’s why I say that.
When I was 10 we returned from mass to discover presents on our porch. My mother had been fighting cancer, and everyone knew it wasn’t going to be long. While many in our community (and that is a massive understatement) bent over backwards to help us, someone went out of their way to deliver a little extra joy while wishing to remain anonymous. My gift that year was a handmade red barn. I played with it growing up, and I’ve passed it down to my children who continue to use it. I wish whoever made it for me knew how much what they did all those years ago meant to me then, and how much what they did continues to mean to me now. Our “Santa” visited us for several years after Mom died, and we’ve never figured out who it might have been. But every time I see the barn, I am remained of the joy he brought me that night with no expectations of anything in return. I hope where ever he or she is that they are surrounded by loved ones who bring them the same kind of joy he or she brought me all those years ago. Merry Christmas everyone!
My favorite gift was my horse stable for my Breyer horses! I still have it and my 4 year old son plays with it now! Thank you for being so generous! I am happy that in a world full of hate that there are still people sharing love.
🙂 Thank you for doing this. Heifer is great! My folks gave me an ant farm in 1964… best gift ever from when I was a kid. 🙂
What a great idea. Heifer works!
I don’t have a favorite Christmas gift but I do want to thank you for raising awareness and supporting this cause.
My favorite gift is the three horses we rescued this year a month ago. I always wanted Santa to bring me a horse for Christmas but we lived on the farm with Grandpa and he said that we eat everything we raise and he didn’t have any recipes for horse. Thank God my husband’s family raised horses in early years and a 31 year old mare born here needed a home along with her 15 year old daughter and another 9 year old mare so I finally got my horse! And we’ve got Angus beef out in the barn too if we get hungry 🙂
Thank you for what you are doing!
Thanks for doing what you’re doing!
My favorite gift is a care bear my mom made for me when I was little.
My best gift was a scarf my sister knitted for me when we were kids.
Hwider International is a favorite.
We woke up to 8 inches of snow Christmas morning 12 years ago (the first Christmas in our new house) We had gone to Mass Christmas Eve, my husband had left his farm partnership in the fall (don’t worry, he only went a little while without cows–now we have jerseys!), all the kids were old enough to be fun but young enough to be home. We had our first ever just us, build snowmen, make snow angels, play board games Christmas without rushing off for chores, other Christmas dinners. That was best.
My first fishing pole (:
A quilt my gramma made me.
Thanks for your donation, my favorite gift has been my camera my husband bought to take pics of farm and kids.