I hope this email finds you sitting at home, eating leftovers, and not buying anything.

There’s something of an organized effort to get folks to stop shopping from now to December 2, but I’m skeptical about its impact. It is simply too easy and too tempting to buy things right now, what with the discounts and the internet and the spirit of consumerism whispering catchy jingles into our ears. I have seen the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by madness when the sales strike.

So instead of trying to make the case for doing nothing at all this weekend (which is arguably even easier than online shopping, and which is also one of my favorite things to do), I thought I’d compile a few suggestions for where you can direct your money to minimize your contributions to billionaires and maximize your potential for doing good.

Stay Local

This one is pretty obvious. If you want the charming shops and boutiques that give your town a nice bit of local flavor to stick around, you gotta spend money at them. Get someone coffee beans from your favorite coffee joint, or merch (or a six-pack) from your favorite brewery. Books are always a good gift, so if your city has any surviving indie bookstores, spend an hour in one of those! Say a little prayer for Jeff Bezos to have a bad day while you’re there.

Tons of local businesses and venues put on holiday markets and craft fairs this time of year—look around online to see what’s going on in your area. (Make sure you check on your favorite breweries; they’re always doing something.) These are great opportunities to find fun little trinkets made by local artists.

For the person in your life who claims to want “experiences over things,” put that to the test by getting them a membership to your local zoo, botanic gardens, or art museum. Tell them to go have an experience with you. Call their bluff.

Shop Their Values

Think about the person you’re shopping for and what they care about. Perhaps they would appreciate a cheeky t-shirt supporting NPR, or a sassy beer glass from your local public radio station. Perhaps they would enjoy wearing their hatred for billionaires and supporting the Working Families Party at the same time. They might like drinking NIMBY tears or sporting swag from their favorite national park or wearing matching Palestine pins with you and three other friends.

Depending on your budget, you could accompany any of these gifts with an additional donation to the corresponding cause. You could also simply do the donation, but let’s be real: Writing someone a note that says “I gave money to this organization in your name” is not nearly as fun as giving them a physical object they can wear or use or otherwise enjoy for years to come.

Make Something

If you are not, say, 38 weeks pregnant, you might have the energy or inclination to make gifts instead of buying them. These are my personal favorites. Nothing makes me feel more special than a hat or lip scrub or batch of brownies that someone has taken the time and the care to make for me.

Don’t get clever and try to gain a new skill between now and Christmas. If you’re not a knitter now, you will not become one quickly enough to make a scarf that you’d be happy to give someone. Instead, lean on what you’re already good at doing or what you already like doing. Bake a fuckton of cookies and parcel them out. Make jam or chili crisp or cocktail mixers. You might be the crafty type who can make inedible gifts like candles or lip balms or even festive drawstring bags that folks can keep as reusable gift wrapping. The possibilities are endless.

As an added bonus, the time you spend at home making these gifts is time that you will not spend online shopping.

There are lots of nice ways to show people we care about them, which I have to believe was the point of gift-giving in the first place. It sucks that this tradition now involves participating in systems that cause harm—to other people, to the planet, to our sense of connection with each other—but it’s still possible to find ways to express care that make our communities if not better, then at least not much worse. It’s hard, and it takes time, but it’s possible. And because it’s possible, it’s necessary.