Something Different in a Christmas Gift Catalog. We're getting a flood of gift catalogs in the mail and almost round-filed this one: The Samaritan's Purse Christmas Gift Catalog 2005. Its clever. Formatted just like any other, except that the gifts are for others in the world. For example, for $15 you can "help a child learn to read and write" by making a contribution to a program that SP has that "supports schools, literacy programs and other educational projects" in Afghanistan, Thailand, Vietname. For $2000 you can "buy an airline ticket to save a child's life" (or share in the cost for $200) and get a child from Honduras to the US for heart surgery. There are 28 glossy pages of such gifts and at all price ranges. Furthermore, you can give the gift in honor or in memory of someone. (I would be pleased for someone to give a gift from this catalog in lieu of a gift for me this Christmas.) If you haven't gotten this catalog yet, you can go to the SP website, order a paper version like ours, or browse the web version.