African American Holiday Gift Shopping

Published last year, the Black Holiday Gifts Guide contains loads of suggestions of culturally relevant gifts.

Click here to download your free copy now.

The African American Holiday Gifts Guide is a living example of Ujamaa - Co-operative Economics. Order the best holiday gifts for your loved ones and support Black-owned businesses at the same time. 

We have loads of great gift ideas for all the family:

* Books for young children, older children, biographies
* Books about Black history and Black achievers
* Books about Kwanzaa
* Music - CDs, DVDs and mp3 downloads
* Toys, games and activities

As well as articles, ideas for free online family fun, and lots more.

Get the latest electronics.

Looking for Kwanzaa crafts you can make? Activities you can share with the children?

How about African Christmas recipes?

Click here to download your free copy now.

How to Black people shop for gifts?

We want to choose gifts he, she and they will love.

We want high-quality gifts which will arrive well in time for the big day.

We want to keep within a budget (yeah, right).

We want to avoid leaving everything to the last minute.

We may shop till we drop, in which case we will need some pampering.

On top of these considerations, African American people often want to find gifts which are culturally relevant for us and our children.

We expect to find toys, games, books and music that reflect our experience in positive ways.

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A recent (2005) film entitled Black Doll/White Doll showed that, even now, in the 21st century, Black children as young as three or four preferred a white doll to one which resembled them. They said the white doll was "prettier".

So there is still a need for positive cultural reinforcement to build African American children's self-esteem and confidence.

Black parents need to find gifts this holiday season which will help their children love, value and appreciate themselves and those who look like them.

Christmas and Kwanzaa provide excellent opportunities for this kind of positive cultural reinforcement. And there is a huge range of products available.

But the children won't have all the fun! The 2009 Black holiday gifts guide will feature gifts for him and for her, along with electronic games, board games, puzzles, posters and books for children and adults alike.

For more great gift ideas, see Celebrating the Legend That Is Motown.

Click here to read about a video about Celebrating Kwanzaa with Maya Angelou. To watch a trailer for the video, see "The Black Candle", below.

Co-operative Economics, or Ujamaa, is one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa. It is also the basis on which the African American Holiday Gifts Guide is published.

To quote the Official Kwanzaa Website, Ujamaa means "To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together".

Who better to provide culturally relevant gifts than African American and other Black-owned companies?

What I really love about producing this gifts guide is that I get to help promote exciting new products provided by Black business-owners and entrepreneurs. These gifts are often original and unique. No need to worry that someone else will have given him or her the same gift.

This video shows that at a very young age, African American children have already learned that white dolls are preferable to Black ones.

It is so important that we give our children toys and images that reflect them culturally.

Black Doll/White Doll

For culturally relevant gifts, see the Black Holiday Gifts Guide at the top of this page.

It's important that learning is fun for all the family.

In my book Black Success Stories, Jak Dodd talks about how he developed the Nubian Jak board game. Players compete to give factual information about a wide range of topics regarding Black history and culture, including education, entertainment, sports, the arts and the sciences. Although the game originally included only Black people in Europe, it now includes people of African culture on every contient.

For more information and to order your copy, visit Do You Think Like a Success? .

For your free copy of the Black holiday gifts guide, visit: Black Holiday Gifts Guide

How can African American parents teach their children to love, respect and value themselves?

How is holiday shopping an opportunity to reinforce positive African American cultural values?

How can I find the best African American holiday recipes?