Ignatius Press

It’s that time of year again where we crawl deep into our garages and take out all the Christmas lights and decorations. I’m always excited each year to see if the outdoor decorations I bought the year before at a discount (since I buy them after December 25th) will actually work. This year, a lit snowman backed by candy cane lights graced our front lawn to keep our Christmas polar bear company. Of course, the Christmas season is also about shopping. I know that we all say Christmas shouldn’t be about gifts, but chances are you will need to buy presents for at least one person. I’m going to tell you how you can shop for Christmas gifts online while supporting RosaryMeds and without it costing you an extra cent.

Do you know why blog websites display ads for various online retailers? Whenever you follow a link from a blog site to an online store and purchase something, that blog site gets a little payment from that online store as a small “thank you” for referring someone’s business. This is called affiliate marketing. I know that term gets a lot of bad press since most people associate it with pyramid, MLM, work-at-home, and “get rich quick” schemes. But it’s a legitimate way many blogs try to cover their costs (hosting, domain registration, site design expenses, etc.). The great thing about affiliate links is that they require you, the customer, to do nothing differently except initially go to the website via a special link from the blog site. You just purchase items that you were going to buy anyway, but the blog site gets a small payment. I try my best to be selective about who I partner with and only promote sites and products that I personally like and relate to the overall themes of RosaryMeds — the Catholic faith, rosary meditation, and prayer.

For example, you might want to consider buying something from Mystic Monk Coffee. This coffee is actually roasted by Carmelite monks in Wyoming as part of their vow of daily labour. It’s the only coffee we brew in my house. Sure, I could go to the market or Starbucks and pick up a bag of dark-roasted beans. But I feel good knowing that when I buy Mystic Monk coffee I’m helping support a monastery and people who dedicate their lives to praying for others like you and me. And when brewed correctly, it tastes great to boot. Do you have a coffee drinker on your gift list? Consider Mystic Monk.

Another Catholic online retailer that is near and dear to my heart is Ignatius Press. To be honest, it is sometimes a love/hate relationship particularly when they send me their catalogue in the mail. The frustration comes from the fact that they offer so many interesting books and videos that there aren’t enough hours in the day to read them all. Just to name a few titles that look interesting to me — 50 Questions on the Natural Law, A Biblical Walk Through the Mass, The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, and Modern Moral Problems. Do you have an avid reader or movie watcher on your gift list? Consider buying something from Ignatius Press.

Of course, in my humble opinion (wink, wink), one of the best gifts you can give yourself or others is a copy of my book, The Rosary for the Rest of Us: A Practical Guide to our Most Powerful Prayer. I saw a huge gap in the types of rosary books available to aspiring prayer warriors. The books are either extremely basic; giving only small paragraph descriptions of each mystery and not even much reflection. Other rosary books are incredibly dense with a lot of scholarly analysis and history of the rosary. That might make for good reading, but does it make for better praying? My book focuses on helping you get the most out of actually praying the rosary, not just learning its history or the story behind each mystery. Do you know someone who could use a little rosary prayer? Consider The Rosary for the Rest of Us.

So there you go — three great Christmas gift ideas. Follow the links to those online stores from this post or on from the banners on the left-hand sidebar of the RosaryMeds website as a way of showing your appreciation for either my articles or my book. And, speaking for bloggers everywhere, if you do intend on purchasing something online this Christmas, check and see if your favourite blog has an affiliate link to the sites that have the items you want. It’s a great way of saying “thank you” to the blogs that you enjoy visiting without requiring any extra effort or money.