Saturday, December 20, 2008

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.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great thing to do!

I picked up a couple of angels from our Senior Center - some of the people there have no family at all, except for their friends at the Center and wouldn't be having any Christmas at all.

Susanne said...

Well, Bev, you just done made me cry. What a lovely thing to do. Those kids will be so excited and what a relief for those parents. It was probably weighing extremely heavily upon them.

Gretchen said...

I know there were many years when my mom didn't know how she was going to pull off Christmas. This is an extremely sweet and I'm sure, fun, thing to do. How nice that your extended family could play together in generosity.

Forgot to mention that a) I agreed with your answers 1-4 on your meme, and especially relate to loving the devotional time by the tree. But #5? You're all alone, sistah. Crazy and alone. ;)

Gretchen said...

Apparently there was no b) to my statement.

Sure wish I could rite.

Beck said...

That is a lovely Christmasy thing to do! We just had a Christmas carolling party to raise money for the food bank - and now my kids are all excited about bring the money over on Monday.

Unknown said...

Bravo Bev! And Jeremy and the whole family. What a great activity.

It's what the season is all about. We love because He first loved us. And this is a great way to show your love.

Merry Christmas!!

daisy said...

I love this. How fun to shop, knowing that you are truly filling an otherwise empty place under the tree. It is its own blessing!