This holiday season, many of you will be entertaining friends and family in your homes.

And hopefully you aren’t stingy with the quality and quantity of your Christmas cheer (What good host is?).

Christmas is also a time of giving (checkout the SUNShine Fund for how to give to the Sally Anne locally), and the makers of Belvedere Vodka are giving Albertans a chance to give a little back with their purchase this year.

Launching in Alberta this Saturday (Dec. 1), complete with a VIP party to coincide with World AIDS Day, (BELVEDERE)RED is the second year the premium vodka maker has partnered with (RED) to help combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Belvedere is donating 50% of net profits from the sales of the beautiful red bottle will go to (RED), the charity kickstarted by U2′s Bono, which has teamed up with some of the biggest brands on the planet: Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Apple and Converse.

The goal is to achieve the first AIDS-free generation by 2015.

Lofty goals indeed, but every bit helps.

The makers of Belvedere say last year’s effort raised enough cash “to provide access to treatment for more than 3,800 HIV-positive pregnant women to help ensure their babies are born HIV-free.”

“Our passion for philanthropy led to the creation of (BELVEDERE)RED last year and our commitment to helping (RED) and the global health community achieve the first AIDS-free generation by 2015 has not waivered since. The new bottle design is symbolic of our dedication to (RED) and a sign to our audience that we, collectively as a global community, can put an end to mother-to-child transmission of this deadly disease but only with their support,” Belvedere Vodka president Charles Gibb said.

For more information about (BELVEDERE)RED, check out the company’s website.

And for more about the vodka, which is a great base on which to build a holiday cocktail, check out what I had to say about it earlier this fall.