Wesley K. Willmer

During the Christmas season, no one wants to be called a Scrooge, which has become an enduring cultural name for a tightfisted, joyless person. We Americans like to think of ourselves as generous, not as Scrooges. But the current recession is exposing our miserly streak.

According to the Giving USA study, donations from individual Americans dropped 2.7 percent compared with 2007. This is the first such decline since 1987.  You may read headlines that total giving last year exceeded $300 billion and think that is a lot of money. In some ways it is, but if you break it down, you'll see that the average American barely gives daily the cost of a premium cup of coffee.