One of my favorite things about the holiday season is how people go out of their way to show others love. They may show their family, friends, neighbors, teachers or complete strangers that this is a special time of the year and that it’s important to give back to others in some small way.
We try to do something each year to help teach our children that it’s always better to give then to receive. One year we made sack lunches for the homeless… another year we donated food to the school’s food drive… we’ve donated toys, money and jackets to various charities. It doesn’t matter what you decide to do. In my opinion it just matters that you do something. No matter how big or how small… if you spend hundreds or a few dollars, just do something. 🙂
We were given a wonderful opportunity to go to one of our favorite stores, World Market and put together a gift for someone we love and felt needed some joy delivered this holiday season.
I’m pretty sure that every time we visit World Market we fall more and more in love. It’s just a happy place to shop and find unique items for ourselves and great gifts for others. Here are a few of our purchases from that day…
We combined those and a few other items into a fun basket with a chalkboard label.
We also picked up this great tree.
There are people around all of us dealing with trials and hard times. People have lost loved ones and will have to spend their first holiday season without them. We have a very close friend that is going through this along with her children right now. It’s very heartbreaking to watch. But we can make sure they know we love and care for them.
It was so nice to be able to deliver this fun surprise to them. Hopefully it brought a little touch of joy to their home. I hope every time she looks at this tree she’ll remember that there are so many people surrounding her and her family that love them so much.
Does your family have a service you like to do during the holidays? Please share in the comments, we’d love to hear about it.
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This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Groupâ„¢, but all our opinions are our own. More information found HERE.
Jodie
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Every year our family gets up very early on Christmas Eve day and we make about 80 to 100 sack lunches. We fill them with sandwiches, chips, cookies, a soda pop and a candy cane. We then load up our cars (two cars) with wagons, all the kiddos and all the sack lunches and head downtown near the capitol/16th street mall and pass out the lunches to the homeless people. We have met the most wonderful people and some very interesting people. It has always been an eye opening experience as well as one that breaks my heart because even though I've done something good and I've given someone a meal, it breaks my heart to know they will go hungry the next day.
By the way…I found out just recently that what we've been doing is illegal. I have no idea why providing a meal for someone in need is illegal, but apparently it is. We are trying to decide whether we will go on breaking the law with this tradition, or try to do something else. We haven't been arrested yet. Maybe the Lord is on our side and looks out for us.
Part of our Black Friday ritual is stocking up for Toys For Tots. We've been donating to them for many years since our daughters were very young and now at 17 & 19 they feel the desire to remind me to get the toys each year! After all, who can resist a marine in uniform? This year, we also put together packages for the local women &children's shelter. All year long my daughter and I make comfort quilts and pillowcases to donate there, but this year there was a special need of some other items that we felt compelled to help out with.
love these ideas ladies! what wonderful memories you are obviously making for your children. thank you so much for sharing. 🙂
p.s. susan… i vote for breaking the law! (only in this situation of course. haha)
I love that basket! great idea, and it looks so pretty!
I love this! Good job girls and I am sure the receiver loved this also! 🙂
What a beautiful gift!