Secret Santa

In the past few years I have been so affected (or is it effected?)at holiday time by all the sadness in the world and I have realized over the years that giving back makes me feel so good.

Recently (about 2 years ago) I had a woman that worked for me who lost her husband to cancer. He had a long and sad fight with the disease that eventually took his life. I believe he passed away in January but in December he was home with hospice and VERY sick. She did not even think about Christmas (their children are all in their 20's) she just could not deal with the happy holidays when she was in so much pain over his illness. Christmas morning came and when she woke and went outside, her driveway was full of presents. Not only for her but for her children, husband and grandson too. She was delighted that someone was so thoughtful to take care of her and her family during a time when she needed this pick me up more than anything. I remember her telling me this story with tears in her eyes. Secret Santa is exactly what she needed.

Ever since that time I have been helping someone in some way at the holidays whether just an extra buck here or there or food to the food bank. I saw first hand how happy it made the woman I knew I hoped it would do the same for someone else.

Fast forward to this year.... They are currently having a food drive in Ryan's school and Ryan asked about the food drive daily. So one morning about a week or so ago I went through my pantry and took out all the items I thought could help. I got out canned veggies, soups, pasta, rice, etc and bagged up a really large bag of items. When Ryan came down that morning I showed him what I had done and asked him to help me bring them to the box that morning for the food drive. All the way to school we talked about the food drive and the holidays and people that have less than us. I explained to Ryan that we were very lucky to have money and that mommy and daddy worked very hard to make money but we were lucky to have jobs, and we were lucky to have a family who did well. I explained to Ryan that there were little boys and girls who mommy's and daddy's did not have money or a lot of food so we are giving them food to help them. He said "That is sad mommy, can we bring more food?" I felt very proud of him that day and until this day he asks me everyday if we can bring more. He told me that we should bring peanut butter (there is a photo of a jar of peanut butter on the food drive box) and even went in the fridge yesterday and said "Look mommy we have peanut butter to bring to school" I said "Ryan, that is mommy's peanut butter and it is opened I don't think they want that" He said "Yes mommy they do, they are hungry." I really have to go buy some peanut butter for the food drive!

Earlier this week I had thought this year I am going to adopt a family for Christmas and help someone who needs it so I did (oh yeah Peter by the way...). This family consisted of a husband and wife both 34 and 2 girls, 6 years old and 3 years old. The husband lost his job in this terrible economy but has been driving a truck "over the road" to support his family. He has been earning only $600 a month! They had to file for bankruptcy since they cannot pay their bills but were able to keep their trailer to live in (in NC) as long as they still pay for it. They literally have nothing but the roof over their heads and to make it worse the husband is only home 4 times a month because he is driving all over the country. They have no money to have Christmas, no money for any kind of present for the children, they need every cent for the bills they have and to put food on the table.

How do you tell a 6 and 3 year old that they have nothing from Santa? How can you stand the look of disappointment on Christmas morning they realized that Santa never came to their house? How does the 6 year old go back to school and tell her friends she had no presents. I could not bear the thought, it bought tears to my eyes.

Thankfully none of this will happen....

Love
Secret Santa