Enough with the gift guides. If you’re looking for a gift — eco-friendly, BPA-free, safe, local, gender neutral, fair-trade, all-natural or small-enough-to-fit-your-budget — the internets are full of guides to help you. You don’t need another from me.

What you may need is some inspiration. Perhaps I’m projecting. But check out:

CCFC Guide to Commercial-Free Holidays 2009
New American Dream’s Simplify the Holidays 
Unplug Your Holidays from Mom Unplugged
“Please Don’t Buy Me Any Stuff” Gift Guide from Annie Fox

Have your own inspiration? Please share in the comments.

Bonus! Three Babysitter Approved gift suggestions:

A book: Actions Speak Loudest delves into the heart of thirty-two issues, ranging from childhood obesity to climate change, that are critical to the well-being of the next generation.  All proceeds go back into the causes and organizations in the book.

A tee shirt: Pigtail Pals redefines girly. 

A cause: Support The Advantage and Disadvantage of Zine: Self-Publishing in Cambodia, a long-term, multifaceted collaboration between PEM friend Anne Elizabeth Moore and a group of young women college students in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The longer I do this advocacy thing the more I realize how many other people are running terrific campaigns with the same goals as ours: Helping create healthy children and families. The internet and social media helps us all to share and disseminate information. I am so proud to be a part of this community!

About-Face
Adproofing Your Kids / @tandrusiak
Center on Media and Child Health / @cmch_boston
The LAMP (Learning About Media Project) / @thelampnyc
Living the Dream, blog of the New American Dream / @newdream_org
Shaping Youth / @ShapingYouth

Just a few of my favorites. Always looking for new voices!

Seriously. If you have children and Christmas in your life, here’s some help in the gift-giving sanity department.

CCFC Guide to Commercial-Free Holidays 
Suggestions and personal stories from staff, board members, and friends of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. Includes tips from CCFC members (add yours, too).

TRUCE 2008-2009 Toys, Play & Young Children Action Guide
A must-read before shopping. “This guide is intended to help adults promote children’s creative and constructive play by making informed choices about toys, and by working with others at home, school, and in the community to promote positive play and toys.”

Simplify the Holidays
From the Center for a New American Dream. The Alternative Gift Registry “makes it easy to choose non-material, homemade, second-hand, and environmentally-friendly gifts.”

Cool Mom Picks 2008 Holiday Gift Guide
Advertorial free. Thoughtful, high quality gifts — many supporting smaller companies, indie designers, and moms working from home. For toys, see the Cool Mom Picks Safer Toy Guide (”. . . we hope that you’re willing to invest in better quality toys, even if that means having fewer of them. How many rattles does one kid need anyway?”)

Guide to Safer Children’s Products
From Healthy Legacy, this guide helps you avoid purchasing products with harmful synthetic chemicals commonly used in children’s products. With handy take-along wallet card.

2008 MediaWise Parents Guide to Video Games
For anyone planning to purchase a video game for a child this year. The Video Game Buying Guide includes good choices and games to avoid.

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Toy Safety Tips
CPSC press release lists top five toy hazards and information on how to get recalled product notices sent to your email.

Best Toys for the Holidays 2008
From the Not Quite Crunchy Parent and friend of PEM M.C. Milker.

Help make the Ultimate Guide to Guides even better: Add your links in the comments.

Photo courtesy Jeff Belmonte.

Buythechange is an online classifieds site that gives back 70 percent of membership fees to local nonprofits.

You can buy, sell, or promote your business locally, and you can designate which nonprofit you’d like to support. Of course, Parents for Ethical Marketing is one choice, but you could also choose to support one of more than a hundred other local organizations.
 
Personal memberships are only $20 a year. You get unlimited postings; your designated nonprofit gets $14 to support its mission.
 
And if you work with a local nonprofit, sign up (it’s free) to be a designated nonprofit.
 
Check out their site and watch their video.
Join Buythechange on Facebook.
Follow Buythechange on Twitter.

Mom Unplugged confesses to becoming a blog capitalist with the introduction of the Unplug Your Kids Store, but she’s really just doing all of us a tremendous favor.

If you’re not familiar with Mom Unplugged, she’s already famous for her toy recommendations as well as her kids’ projects. With the Unplug Your Kids Store, she’s going to rummage through Amazon.com to bring us the best toys and books for kids:

I really hope that my store can help people cut through some of the toy and book junk out there. Having only a Walmart and Kmart to shop at for toys has made me an expert online shopper. I would like to pass along the good finds to others. . . . Most of what I recommend, we have and love. The rest is stuff I would like to have and love!

Plus, she’s promised me NO DISNEY PRINCESSES. I’m guessing we’ll never see anything with a licensed character at all. At least that’s what I’m hoping.

Thanks, Mom Unplugged, for helping promote good, safe books and toys for our kids — and helping to support PEM’s mission to sustain the health of children and families. You are Officially Babysitter Approved!