I REALLY love Christmas time. The presents are great, the lights are awesome, the tree is beautiful, the treats are heavenly and so on and so forth. For me the season is about so much more. I love to buy presents for my family and having Shyanne is making that even more fun then it has ever been, but I have always loved giving so much more. It all started when my moms side of the family started doing Sub for Santa each year instead of giving gifts to each other. A couple of years my mom and I have done presents for friends of mine or hers that we knew would not be getting a great Christmas because of challenges in their lives. My mom even started the tradition of doing it in her neighborhood instead of giving out gifts. When I lived in Cedar City, SUU would do a giving tree and I loved to take a few of those since I was missing out on all the festivites at home. Now that I have my own house in a new neighborhood I have felt a little empty the last few years as far as the giving back department is concerned. We would always buy a toy at Walmart and put it in the Toys for Tots box but I felt like I wasn't doing enough. Last year Cory and I started throwing around the idea of having a season long fundraiser in front of the house because we usually get a lot of people driving by. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, we put A LOT of lights up :) So this year we actually made it happen. We had a banner made by a very amazing person who has been in my life for a long time, they gave us an amazing price on it. Then we went and bought some bins and put it all out on the lawn. My friend and I took flyers around the neighborhood and Cory took some to the local gas stations to get the word out. We have a really good friend who dresses up like Santa and does parties to get donations to do Christmas for a few families each year. He came out one night and we did hot chocolate and cookies and told people they could do cash donations or donations of toys, clothes and/or food if they wanted and come see Santa. All in all it has been a big success this year, we have already hauled two cars full of donations to there respective places. We are looking forward to many years of The Santa "Cause" and giving this opportunity for Shyanne to grow up understanding the true meaning of giving and being selfless behind Christmas.
Here I am at The Santa "Cause" party giving Santa Isabel's list
Erin running the treat table
The ladies who made the whole thing happen.We also had the Mackay annual "Sub for Santa" Christmas party at my house this year and the families donated items for my The Santa "Cause" and also money for my friends families. This is the same Santa.
Can you tell how much Shyanne loved Santa this year? :)
Grandma even got to sit on Santa's lap:)
No comments:
Post a Comment