It's time to give back

One of my favorite memories as child is my mother taking us to Zellers to pick out a toy we thought someone our own age would like. We would run up and down the aisles looking at barbies, and dolls, and board games, taking everything on the shelf into consideration before picking the perfect one. I believe we had a budget of $25 but finding something or a few things for that amount was never difficult.

We would then drive to the salvation army and hand the toys over.

My mother always explained to us that there were kids just like us out there that might not be getting that many gifts for Christmas so our gifts would make sure their Christmas morning was happy. We did this every year until high school if I remember correctly. After that my mother not only volunteered at the salvation army during November & December,  but also still picks tags with a anonymous child's information on it and purchases a gift or two for that child.

This is something I want to start with my children. G currently is very curious and very sensitive about new things he is learning, so I'm hoping it will go over well. A will undoubtedly have a death grip on the item and I'll have to distract her in order to get it away.

This year I am just going to explain (like my mother had) that we are buying gifts for children who won't be getting very many on Christmas morning. I'm going to try not to go into too much detail as I don't think G can quite grasp the concept yet. Next year I'll have answers prepared for why Santa can't just bring them more gifts? and can we go play with those kids? and why can't their parents buy them more? I'll have answers next year - when maybe A can understand it also.

So far I have donated to both the canned food drive & the toy drive at T's work. I've also been going through toys and donating what is no longer used or was never popular. In January I plan to go on a major purge of stuff (but that's another blog post). 

So as I can officially say ALL my Christmas shopping (except a few groceries) is complete. I plan on taking the kids one (hopefully quiet) morning next week to pick out a gift and maybe a sucker for distraction to pry the donations out of their hands.

I've seen a few things floating around the internet about doing a reverse advent calendar. Starting December 1st every day you put something in a box - it can be food or a toy or clothing, really anything is helpful and then on Dec 24th you donate your box. I think this is a great idea, however, December 24th is too late for anywhere you donate to get the items out to the people who need them the next day. Maybe double up the items every day and donate on the 15th. Even if you can only donate one or two items, those two items might add two dishes to a family dinner or two gifts to a child who believes in Santa. I guarantee you, you will feel amazing after doing so.