(NC) -- You arrive at the party and look from guest to guest. One brought a bottle of expensive wine, another brought a wheel of stilton cheese. Someone else has a model of the Eifel tower made out of gingerbread. You look down at the box of stale crackers in your hands and feel embarrassed.

When we want our hostess gift to be fun, meaningful and unique, it's pretty disheartening to be the stale crackers person. So why not give the ultimate honour with a gift that makes the world a better place?

To find such a hostess gift, look no further than your friendly neighbourhood charity. For example, a respected organization called cbm (ranked as one of Money Sense's top 10 Canadian charities) gives us these three suggestions from their Christmas Gift Guide:

Give the gift of “It's good to see you”. One of the best parts of holiday parties is seeing people face to face. You can celebrate that by giving someone who is blind and living in poverty the ability to see.

Give the gift of conversation. What better way to celebrate an evening of soul-stirring conversation than by giving someone else the ability to speak. Sign language lessons let someone who is deaf communicate with the people around them.

Gifts par egg-celence. Whether it's wings or devilled eggs or Cornish hens – chickens are often central to Christmas cookery. Celebrate your host's holiday menu by sending some festive fowl to a family in need.

You can find these gifts (and more) at www.givejoy.ca – and be sure to give this information to the person sulking in the corner with a box of saltines.

www.newscanada.com