The Joy of Giving

On Monday, I finished crossing off everyone on my Christmas list–family, friends, teachers, and church ministry.  Then I contacted someone I’d met last year about this time and asked her about the current needs in her special ministry.

In response to this friend’s request last year, my daughter and one of her friends rounded up toiletries, fuzzy socks, snacks, and fun teen novels from their own collection to create gift bags for 20 girls in crisis pregnancies.  We also scraped together some toys, baby board books, and baby clothes for the children living with the teens. We had such a good time creating the gifts that we decided to do it again this year for 22. 

On Wednesday night, my daughter was given a list and a directive to create an amazing stocking to add to the collection that our church youth group will take to various shelters around the city.

So, with our hands full of gift cards leftover from previous Christmases, birthdays, and other special events (each containing only a few bucks and cents), Liz and I set out early this morning with our list.  In just 2.5 hours, we had a car full of fuzzy socks, discounted Christian novels, cute hair ties, chocolate-covered pretzels, and tons of chapstick.  We visited Target, Ollie’s, and Barnes and Noble, hardly even encountering a crowd since we set out at 8 a.m. sharp!

Liz had a blast setting out 22 stations on our extra holiday table in the library, matching hair ties to socks and book covers!  We will add packets of hot cocoa and granola bars to the piles and package them up in clear cellophane bags with big pretty Christmas bows after I run through Sam’s tomorrow!  

Liz exclaimed over each little stack, imagining the girls’ delight when they open our little packages of love.

It’s easy and low stress to just write a check to your favorite charity at Christmas time, and we do that as well for the groups who provide ministries near and dear to our family’s heart, but it’s something altogether different when you grab your child by the hand, plan a shopping strategy, attack a list of needs together, and then see the fruits of your time and energy at the end.  I’d say it’s more fun than riding in a “one-horse open sleigh!”