The Season of Giving (and a Giveaway)

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My brother Shepard died of cancer on November 29th, 2000. That year, several families did a 12 Days of Christmas for us.

I never found out who it was (although my parents may know), but I still clearly remember what a happy thing that was during a fairly difficult Christmas season.

I’ve always wanted giving to be part of our family Christmas celebrations, so when Kohl’s contacted me a few months ago and asked if we’d be interested in being matched with a family that needed some help for Christmas and picking out gifts for them at Kohl’s, Bart and I immediately said yes.

Two weeks ago, we received the information about the children, their sizes, a few things they wanted for Christmas, plus a gift card to Kohl’s to purchase the items, and yesterday the girls and I met Bart at our local Kohl’s during lunchtime, and we spent about an hour picking out items for three children in our area.

(Although these kids are young, they are substantially older than my girls, so it kind of broke my heart every time Ella picked out some toy she thought was the best and said, “Would those kids like THIS?” and I had to tell her that, no, it probably wasn’t quite the right toy for a nine-year-old boy).

I was really glad Bart came along, because he helped make sure we picked out a good combination of practical things like jackets and fun things, like a remote-controlled helicopter.

Also, I had saved a 20% off coupon that had come in the mail a few weeks ago, and when the total after the coupon came up as $149.55 (our budget was $150), Bart and I both possibly did a little cheer in the checkout lane.

Then we sat in the car and had a little picnic lunch with some sandwiches I’d packed, which was just a ridiculously nice forty-five minutes as a family.

This afternoon, we’ll drop off the bags of gifts at the local charity that we’re working through and we’ll cross our fingers the clothing fits and the toys are fun. And feel grateful for all we have – we are so very very fortunate.

This post wasn’t sponsored (although, I guess I do have a Kohl’s gift card with 45 cents on it. I’ll try not to spend it all in one place). Kohl’s provided the gift cards for us to buy the presents and the gift card for the giveaway. All words, pictures, and cute children are my own. 

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136 Comments

  2. Love reading your blog 🙂 I really like when you post about books..I trust your judgement..keep up the good writing!

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  3. Sounds perfect! We've done something similar each Christmas in our family that started with a secret santa project my husband was working on before he and I were married. My kids still haven't quite figured it out, but I hope tradition wins out and they start to look forward to it.

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  4. We're partners with our church to help families fostering children buy gifts for the children. I'd like to give the foster family the gift card.

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  7. What a fun thing to do as a family. We did Angel tree and now when my son asks for a bedtime story, he asks for me to tell him a story about sharing with little boys and girls who don't have as much as we do.

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  11. I still remember some of the giving activities we did as a family when I was young. I'm sure that these will be lasting memories for your girls.

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  14. I love this. This is my first Christmas as a mom and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how I can start traditions so that my child(ren) spends the holidays filled with a sense of wonder and gratitude.

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