I need a little help with this one:

"These are all fine and good ideas, and I've actually done some of them in the past for friends (including your sister), but the question is...
WHAT DO I DO FOR FOUR-YEAR OLDS?! Especially four-year olds obsessed with Disney Princesses (don't research that one, it will make you nauseous), AND who live in the middle of nowhere?"

My experience with four-year-olds is very limited -- and I understand that they are very special creatures who definitely appreciate stuff.  My best no-stuff gift idea would be dance classes, in which aforementioned four-year-old could be a princess.  Price and geography might prove prohibitive in this case, though.  The problem isn't just the princess, it's also the Disney.  Maybe you could introduce her to some other, non-Disney princesses?  Like Pippi Longstocking?  (You'd have to read that to her or get her the videos, and she might be a little young - Random House says 9-12 but my boss reads the books to his 5 or 6 year-old daughter.)  Or maybe a book of bedtime-story fairy/folk tales?  I tried looking up "princess dolls + organic" but most of the organic/earth-friendly toys out there are pretty dorky; this site had some cute stuff.  The problem is, she lives in a Disney-saturated world, and she wants Disney stuff -- and there's nothing worse than asking for exactly what you want and getting a stupid homemade thing that you didn't want. 

Are there any parents out there that can help this dude find something good for his niece?

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"Some good suggestions but how about donations to causes as gifts? WWF have some nifty symbolic adoptions of animals and Greenpeace Australia have symbolic gifts this year too - from activist handcuffs to armchair activism...   

And there are so many more organizations like Oxfam with this idea in place for all your social and environmental justice needs :)."

Thanks so much for the ideas, Kat - I hope these will trigger some gift donations from my readers. 

My no-stuff gift guide is largely designed to give to people who have dryly referred to Fix as "Megan's activist project" or "that thing you're doing this year where you don't buy anything" and who are sick of what they perceive as smugness every time something remotely related to Fix comes up.  I've got a few people in my world who think shopping is unequivocally great and who feel like they're being preached to all the time by crazy New York liberals; I'm sure you've got a few, too.  I thought I might submerge the politics a little and just try to keep plastic and imported junk out of people's lives. 

I did, however, consider writing about giving service or donations as gifts.  One of the best gifts I ever received was a donation in my name to a small organization that had dance classes for disabled kids.  The givers understood that dancing is something I am incredibly grateful for; that they made dancing available to people who conventionally don't have access was a gift greater than anything I could have thought of.  Charity is a personal thing, though, and, despite what I said below about giving a piece of myself, I feel uncomfortable intimating that I know exactly which cause the recipient of my gift would like to donate to.  If you know precisely what will work, I'm all for it - the gift will still be a gift for him/her as well as the charity.  (Local/community causes might be more personal than giving to giant organizations that zillions of people donate to regularly.)  I recently found out about another alternative: charity gift cards.  Companies like TisBest, CharityChoice, and JustGive partner with charities/non-profits/NGO's to create a list that your dollars will go to, once your recipient chooses which he/she likes best.  I don't know a whole lot about these - if you have any info, feel free to comment.  (I learned about them from a segment on NPR.)