GeneroCITY

Our church's Christmas theme this year is 'GeneroCITY' - being generous within your own city, and they're encouraging us, each week, to reach out in different ways. This past week it was the gift of time. Our son-in-law, Jeremy, asked around at work, how he could be generous and found out about two families, a total of seven children, who would not be having Christmas. So he went to work!

The social worker gave him ages, and what each kid might like to see under the tree. Armed with that and donations Jeremy rounded up in just a few days' time, we headed to Walmart. Grabbing three carts, we each went off with a list and a budget. Here's Jeremy, in line, waiting to go through the checkout.

The checker was very gracious, considering the size of the purchase!

Back home, we wrapped one family's gifts in red paper and the other in blue, so the social worker can keep them sorted. Each gift had a tag with the child's initials written on it in pencil, so the parents can erase them and write the child's first name. They'll also be given a list of what the packages contain, so they know ahead of time what the kids are opening.

The wrapping party started with donuts and coffee, and Christmas music in the background for inspiration along with every pair of scissors and roll of tape we could scare up. You didn't have to be very good at wrapping, just willing.

Someone had to test the toys before they were wrapped up - Landon volunteered for that job!



Here's the finished product: packages for each child will be delivered, by Jeremy, to the social worker on Monday, who will deliver them to the families on Tuesday. Thursday morning seven little kids should wake up to a tree filled with packages that have their names on them. We all had so much fun, we're thinking it should be the first annual of this tradition.


Knowing that these seven kids, who would not have had a Christmas, will wake up to this, is better than anything you could wrap up and put under a tree for any of us.