Hat-tip to Ariana Gadd for putting this fabulous list together!

Make this holiday season extra special by shopping consciously and giving gifts that give back. This year we’ve compiled an extensive list of gift ideas for everyone that ranges from handcrafted household accessories and jewelry to energy-saving electronics and unique recycled items. There are great gifts for kids, beautiful blooms and evergreens, and an exciting array of gift sites that are changing the world every day. Shop on!

UNIQUE GIFTS

Yo Ho! Sea Bags Totes Set Sail for Holidays Whether you’re setting sail for the mall or Madagascar, you’ll want to take along one of these spectacular bags made from recycled sails in Portland, ME. $110

Nicaraguan Pottery Supports Peace Efforts Profits support Potters for Peace project which helps to meet urgent demands for safe drinking water in rural and marginalized communities, while providing employment for local potters throughout the world. $59.00.

Bags That Never Felt So Good! These colorful felt bags are made from 100% recycled materials. They’re the perfect fit whether you need a small bag when you want to travel light, or if you need an extra bag for your purse or briefcase to store make-up, credit cards, receipts, medications or anything else you can think of. They’re a bargain at $23.00.

Studio Bird Pillow Flies with Style Soft, stylish and sustainably made in Grand Rapids, MI out of organic hemp, cotton and natural feathers and down. $98.00 This beautifully crafted dragonfly has been reinvented as handmade wall art made from steel drums. Made in Haiti, it sells for $24.95.

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What do Brigitte Bardot, beach litter, and American rappers on skid row have in common? They’re all on the TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup!   The Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie:

Pras On Skid Row (Literally)

Top 10 Reasons to Go to the Havana Film Festival in New York

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Nicole:

6 Million Pounds of Trash Found On World’s Beaches In One Day

“Take A Bite” Out of Climate Change

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Giulia:

Once Upon A Time Mommy Wasn’t This Pretty

We Can Solve It

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Gina:

The Fresh Air of the Flight of the Red Balloon and Hou Hsiao Hsien

Brigitte Bardot on Trial for Her Contempt Towards Muslims

Thanks to the Havana Film Festival New York (HFFNY), you can see some of the great films that are part of the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana, AKA the Havana Film Festival. In its 9th year, HFFNY features full-length features, documentaries, short films, classics and animation from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the United States.

Here are 10 reasons you won’t want to miss the festival.

1) ESTELA BRAVO RETROSPECTIVE: WITNESS OF HER TIME. FREE! (Tuesday April 15th) Check out three films of the Brooklyn born American filmmaker Estela Bravo, the director of 30 award-winning documentaries on Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and the US. Then stay for a talk between Bravo and filmmaker Tami Gold.

2. Holy Father and Gloria, Bravo’s moving account about Carmen Gloria, a Chilean student whom the Chilean military doused with gasoline and set on fire in 1986 and Pope John Paul’s visit to Chile a year later, which ignited a massive outpouring against the repressive Pinochet regime.

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While most of my Boston pals are still healing from the Patriots SuperBowl loss, some folks in Nicaragua and Romania are actually enjoying the Pats defeat. Well enjoying the gear given to them after the Pats defeat.

Thanks to the NFL and WorldVision( to learn more!) championhip gear meant for players didn’t go to waste, instead goods were shipped to needy children.

Some of the recipients were the smiling children at a school in the San Gregorio neighborhood in the town of Diriamba.

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“Dear Reuters reporter Patrick Markey and editor by Xavier Briand: your article Colombia Protests Over Nicaragua’s FARC Remarks is confusing, at best, and misleading, dishonest, ideological, at worst, and if I were a Reuters editor, I’d fire. But, to be charitable, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and some tips on reporting. OK, take out a pencil. And some coffee, because it’s going to be a long night. Where to start? OK, here we go. You wrote that the Colombian Government is angry at Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega because

Ortega…. and ex Marxist guerrilla…. and…. a former Cold War enemy of Washington, called FARC chief Manuel Marulanda a “dear brother” during a speech this week in which he also backed international efforts to free captives held by the leftist rebels.

1) LANGUAGE: as reporters, you’re supposed to PRETEND to be objective. Framing Ortega as a Cold War enemy is a little charged, not to mention passe. So try to keep your Cold War feelings to yourself. (Also, if you want to go all Cold War, why not give props to Reagan for training the Contras in Nicaragua to take care of the Sandinistas, of which Ortega was part. I guess then you’d have to bring up the whole selling arms to Iran to support the Contras habit thing, which is a little awkward. )

2) TRUTHINESS Your phrasing suggests that the Leftist Ortega sucked up to the leader of the Colombian Guerrilla group FARC and called him a brother, while, on another note, and coincidentally, he also asked some random leftist rebels to free their captives. This is truthy, but not true. The truth is Ortega was explicitly invited by French President Sarkozy (you guys would like him, because he’s not Washington’s enemy) to pressure the FARC to free their captives, one of whom is the French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt. Rather than calling the FARC leader a brother and also trying to free some prisoners, Ortega specifically implored his “dear brother” the FARC leader, to release the captives FARC under his leadership, is holding.

3. OMISSION AND TAKING WORDS OUT OF CONTEXT. Again, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I could draw the conclusion that you purposefully omitted the context of Ortega’s comments in order to make him look like a crazy wing bat instead of a tactful, diplomatic, head of state attempting to ensure the release of prisoners. But, I, at least, am a woman of my word, so I will assume you are lazy, or don’t speak Spanish or don’t have a translator. (Although I can’t help noticing that your Ortega quotes were limited to two words “my brother” you were much more thorough when it came to translating Colombian government’s response: “The government … is obliged to reject phrases expressing brotherhood with terrorists…. Colombia awaits clarification of the statement to ensure such actions do not affect relations.”) So, I thought I would do some investigating for you. Here is what Ortega said: “Quiero aprovechar para hacer un llamado a mi querido hermano, el comandante, Manuel Marulanda Vélez… en nombre de los revolucionarios latinoamericanos… que como una señal de trabajar por la paz… yo le pido que ponga en libertad a Ingrid Betancourt.” Don’t worry boys. I know you too well to expect you to try to translate this, so I’ve done that for you. Ortega said, “I want to make a plea to my dear brother, commander, Manuel Marulanda Velez… en the name of Latin American revolutionaries… as a symbol of working for peace… I ask you to free Ingrid Betancourt.”

4. REWRITE Again, aware of your less than protestante work ethic, I have taken the liberty of rewriting your truthy sentence into a truthful sentence. Try replacing, Ortega “called FARC chief Manuel Marulanda a “dear brother” during a speech this week in which he also backed international efforts to free captives held by the leftist rebels” with Ortega “who was invited by French President Sarkozy to help negotiate the release of FARC’s captives, appealed to the FARC chief Manuel Marulanda, saying “I want to make a plea to my dear brother, commander, Manuel Marulanda Velez… in the name of Latin American revolutionaries… as a symbol of working for peace… I ask you to free Ingrid Betancourt.” Now, doesn’t that sound better? And doesn’t writing something more true and less truthy feel better?

President Niolas Sarkozy has appealed to Latin American Presidents on the Left including Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Argentina’s Kirchner, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega to pressure the left wing Guerrilla organization FARC to release Ingrid Betancourt. A French-Colombian dual citizen, Betancourt was kidnapped by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces) in 2002, while she was running for president. Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, and former Sandinista (who the Contras took care of) agreed to Sarkozy’s request and urged FARC to release their captives, including Betancourt:

I want to make a plea to my dear brother, commander, Manuel Marulanda Velez… en the name of Latin American revolutionaries… as a symbol of working for peace… I ask you to free Ingrid Betancourt.

In this time of intense negotiations over the freedom and lives of more than a thousand Colombian hostages, the Colombian Government has its priorities in order and is putting all of their diplomatic energy into…. threatening Nicaragua? That’s right. Instead of being happy that a left wing hero is using his left wing cred to push for the release of hostages(which is precisely why Sarkozy asked Ortega, along with Chavez and the Kirchners, for his support) Colombia is focusing on semantics and demanding an apology:

The government … is obliged to reject phrases expressing brotherhood with terrorists…. Colombia awaits clarification of the statement to ensure such actions do not affect relations.

Maybe the hostage exchange being brokered in Colombia can offer a solution to this diplomatic spat. How about an apology exchange, in which Ortega apologizes for daring to call a Left Wing Guerilla leader “dear brother” (in order to appeal to his bro to release his hostages), as soon as Colombia’s President Uribe apologizes for supporting right wing death squads?