Gift Your Time Instead of Things

We’ve heard about a loneliness epidemic a lot in 2025. We live in a hyper-individualistic society that praises you for doing things on your own and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. We’re expected to move out on our own as soon as we turn 18 years old. In more recent years, due to rent being high where the jobs are and a lack of attainable housing inventory, many young adults are not moving out of their parents’ home, or are moving back in after leaving (if this privilege is available to you). I’d say this is the one good thing that has come from unaffordable homes — community. Friends are also buying homes together and establishing chosen family support systems. We know that having community and an established support system is important, so let’s talk about what that can look like at the holidays.

Everyone is on a tight budget. Unless you’re really wealthy, and then you don’t even look at your bank accounts, probably. Gifting things to everyone you love and care about can get very expensive quickly. People are spending upwards of $750 on gifts this year, apparently. I’d like to propose an alternative. Let’s use our time. We don’t have infinite time, which makes it special. We have the ability to prioritize our lives, which means that if someone is receiving your time and efforts they should know that they were more important to you than something else. You can use it in unique ways per the individual.

Make it specific to the person. If you know your person loves coffee, then a $10 coffee shop outing and a walk through a park nearby is probably a lovely gift for that person. If your person just wants down time, but also wants to hang out, maybe some couch time is in order. Sit together, make girl dinner, and just chill. If your person is a foodie, maybe offer to help them cook a fancy dinner together.

Make it memorable. The thing most of us have at the end of our lives is our memories (yes, I’m painfully aware of dementia and Alzheimer’s, but we’re not talking about that). The things we look back on and think “wow, that was so fun!” is what you’re aiming for. For me, that may be that someone was willing to ride with me the 6.5 hours it takes to get to the gulf coast and put my toes in the sand at the first sign of spring. It could be a hike to a mountaintop to bring in the New Year as a way to see your new horizons (we have fantastic state parks, by the way, and they do this annually). It could be that you hate physical activity and you would instead like to play a marathon of board games. I’ve done this before and it’s a fond memory. We pulled out every 2-player board game we had and played every single one of them back-to-back.

Make it weird (or creative, if you prefer). Again, this is about being specific to the person and it being special. You know what all of us do on the regular? We get groceries. We run errands. We pay bills. We make dinner. Do your grocery run with your friend. Go to each other’s grocery stores and give each other a tour, if you will. Offer to grab your neighbor’s mail for them (if you care about them). Have a bill-paying or budgeting party. Boring tasks, but way more fun with friends. Trade dinners once a week. Pick a friend whose food you like. You make dinner for yours and their family one day, and they do the same on another day. So, one day a week, each of you have a day off of meal-planning/cooking.

Other examples:

One of my friends is a fantastic baker and she loves it, so she bakes for her friends and family for special events and holidays.

I know my husband loves whiskey, so I planned a bourbon trail trip for us (for really cheap) in July of this year.

Go camping or glamping at a state park. Time around a fire is hard to beat. Add some s’mores and a deck of cards and you’re really in business.

Go get a chocolate chip cookie from every bakery in your area over the next year. Take one to one of your friends, too. Rank them as you go.

Offer to help fold and put away all of your friend’s laundry one weekend. That can be a big task made much smaller by having a buddy help.

Next time you make a slow cooker meal, make enough to put half in a freezer container to take to your friend.

Have an ice cream sundae night. Get all the toppings and build the most ridiculous dessert. Make it a gathering by having your friend/family group bring toppings themselves and one ice cream flavor per person.

Yes, I know all of these things still cost money in one way or another, but they build better community than just giving someone a candle. Be intentional about building community and you will find it is out there. If you want a village, you have to be willing to be a villager. Villagers participate in things for the greater good of the village.