The past few years I've dealt with the pain of the holidays by spending a lot of money...fortunately it was always for a good cause. Our church participates in several "outreach" programs....one of them is international, the other local.
Internationally we participate in the Operation Christmas Child, which provides shoe box gifts to children all over the world...in which there are some toys etc as well as necessary items (soap, tooth brushes, socks etc). It's actually a really cool program. You can choose as to what age and gender you want to buy for then, fill a shoe box (or a plastic tote) with whatever things you want.
This year I didn't get a chance to go shopping for the shoe boxes, but that's ok, because you can actually go online here and make donations...which are used to pay for postage of the packages or to buy items for boxes.
I've never checked out their website before, but there is actually a thing on there that will allow you to track your box...which I think is an awesome thing if you have kids. That way they can see where their boxes are going.
The other thing we do is through social services in our town. Local churches get a list of different families who don't have much, which includes the age/gender of any children (kind of like Angel Tree, but we don't have that around here). Last year we bought Christmas presents for a 14 year old girl, a 8 year old boy, a newborn girl....as well as something small for the parents. It felt good to buy things for kids that I knew had very little, if not nothing.
Matt and I think it's incredibly important for our kids to realize that there are others who are less fortunate out there, and that (regardless of the reasoning behind the circumstance...whether mom and/or dad just don't want to work [we have a lot of that around here]....or if they have fallen on hard times) it is our responsibility to help those that we can...especially the children, who are not in control.
There's a song that really brings this to mind...and always makes me cry. It's from The Polar Express (awesome movie!)...in the song there are 3 children....2 have everything and 1 has nothing. The little boy sings a line about how Santa must be busy, because he's never come around to his house....that just tears at my heart and always makes me cry...so if I can make some kids Christmas a little bit more special....I'll do it.
So...as a thought provoking question: What have you done in the past for others? What do you plan on doing this year for others?
4 comments:
Ever since I had money of my own to spend I've done the Angel Tree. My parents always did it and got the big items like tricycles, bikes, etc. I just cannot imagine children on Christmas having nothing to open. It breaks my heart.
We do Operation Christmas Child as well. I didn't know you could track your boxes...how neat!! I love this time of year!!
Jennifer, MN. They have a make a wish program at work and I have for several years been buying a toy for that program. My son this year is 4.5 and I made him help me pick it out. His pre-school also had a big food drive - every kid that brought in an item (and they had us bring in different items for 5 class periods) got to stick a 'feather' on a 'turkey' - that turkey was huge! So we don't do much but this year is the first I have gotten Peter more involved. I was telling my husband that i think he is just telling us back the words we told him .. but it is slowly sinking in. Someday I plan to do actual volnteer work with him. But I think 4.5 might be a bit too young for that yet. :-)
Growing up, my family would always do the "Angel tree"...my little sis and I loved picking out the presents for the family.
M. and I have continued that tradition, even before we were blessed with Miss O.
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