Best. Christmas. Ever.

A Christmas miracle happened today! I was starting to get anxious since I hadn’t started my Christmas shopping yet. (It was only yesterday I realized I wasn’t actually going to knit everyone sweaters like I’d been planning.) Then, I heard about this e-commerce site on NPR. It is one-stop-shopping with the perfect Christmas present for everyone, such as, “a malaria net for a child in Africa” or “a year of school for an orphan.” Perfect! Who wouldn’t pretend to love that?

Now, everyone knows that if you have a family, you should never, ever mention a preference for a specific farm animal. My mother mentioned casually, about 12 years ago, that she thought pigs were cute. So, every birthday, every Christmas, thus after—each holiday we were obligated to buy her stupid shit to prove we loved her, well, it was always a ceramic pig, or a country-home style pig portrait. Last Christmas, I sat in our kitchen, counting the pigs. There were 62. I heard my mother sigh as she added another one to the shelf.

“Mom, do you even like pigs?” I finally thought to ask.

“Not really,” she said.

So this year, what did I buy her? A pig! An actual, real live pig! (For a family in Africa.)

From there it was a shopping bonanza. I bought a “small business loan for a woman living with HIV/Aids” for my sister; “10 fruit trees” for a family in Africa for my grandmother; a “goat for a woman” for my father; and “a blanket” for my great aunt.

But the best of all? For my sister’s boyfriend I bought “hope for sexually exploited girls.” At only $25, I thought it was quite a bargain. (The pig was $60.) I couldn’t figure out why hope was so cheap this year, particularly in a recession. Then I realized—Obama has flooded the market. Basic economics: more hope on the market means the price goes down.