As packages are arriving at their destinations, I wanted to share (with permission, but anonymous) a message I received earlier today.
It's amazing and perfect! The hoodie will be a little big (how he likes them) and it was the number one thing on his wish list. I can't thank you enough knowing this will be a perfect Christmas. I stood staring at the box and thought how it was not just presents, but a loving community that was behind me, giving me love and strength and hope. And how a beautiful elf put this package together. Love you and DGMS!
Your donations to Yes, Virginia do more than make Christmas magic for children. You make emotional magic for their parents. Asking for help is never easy, we all know that. But once asked for, this blogmunity rallies every year to make hearts leap and to deliver smiles where there was only sorrow, sadness, desperation.
Thank you ALL.
We are entering the last push of the sleigh this week - still smiles to bestow and wish lists to fill - so give if you can. What you get in return? Well, go back and read that message again. A wished for hoodie and a Nerf child camera have insured that Christmas came early for that Mom's heart, and her son will wake up to the words "merry and bright" on Christmas Day.
(Oh, and as for that "beautiful elf"? High praise and much appreciated, but, ummmm, Toby sees what I elf in all day long. Not exactly ready for my close-up.)
Today I stumbled upon a video from last holiday season. Called The Christmas Gift Experiment, it shows the joy in being the giver of a gift. We all know how nice it is to be on the receiving end, but this blogmunity has shown, year after year, that the most wonderful gift is not simply in the ones we manage to give to total strangers (as in the video) but in the amazing feelings we receive by doing so.
Watch...
Now, as you are still smiling, I will update you on our efforts. So far we have provided food (via giftcards) to 8 families, and have tucked everything from a farting dinosaur to baby dolls to warm sweatpants to desperately needed coats and mittens under the trees for 24 children.
Two more families have been brought to the sleigh in the past day. Their stories are heartbreaking - hunger, embarrassment, desperation, job loss, terminal cancer of a parent - and in the words of another parent, "I feel like a failure."
I want to stress to you how often those exact words appear in my inbox. "I feel like a failure." Parents who are working as hard as they can to tread economic water, but feel they are drowning with their children nonetheless. This season I have read of parents who go without food so their children may eat. PARENTS. As in not just one story.
I hate that hunger is such a common refrain every year as we mount this effort. Food should not be seen as some desperately dreamed for gift, but it is. Being hungry is not shameful.
To that end, as you sit down to your dinner table tonight, run through the drive-thru at lunchtime, or grab that daily cappuccino in the morning - think about what you take for granted. I can tell you that my biggest problem tonight is deciding what I will eat, not if I can eat - and probably standing in a pantry staring at all the food and seeing nothing that stirs my interest. That is shameful.
As is always the case, as the fund is used, Rudy and I pick up the slack - and we are at the point again. Please give if you can. Time is ticking and the days are flying by. But we can still help more people.
And in return receive the gift of how wonderful that feels.
(P.S. I have also been asked why I have not been writing about certain things lately. I promise, I am reading all the news, everywhere. My mind is practically exploding with all the ways it wants to assault my keyboard. And I will. I will get back to that. Please understand, however, at this time of the year, when we are helping so many - and not asking who they voted for - my focus is on them, their needs, their desperation. And my ranting here just feels wrong while I spend so much time elfing. I promise you the New Year will see the floodgates open again, so get your waders ready. But for now, with a heart still heavy and fearful since November 8th, I am selfishly focusing on trying to be happy and spread happy with your help.)
This morning I shared a video on Facebook. Created by the people of Sandy Hook Promise, this PSA is pretty amazing. Once I watched it all the way through, I literally found myself doing that quick intake of breath when something takes you by surprise.
Watch, and then I will explain what I am taking away from this beyond the intended message:
OK, so if you had not yet seen it, you may have found yourself sucking that same breath in.
The message of the PSA is obviously that the signs of an impending tragedy are there - building, fomenting, quietly raging, but we don't see them. We look past them. Or even if we do see them, no one wants to believe it is that bad. Mass shootings happen somewhere else. Not HERE, wherever your HERE happens to be. Well, allow me to remind you of what I have written after each mass shooting we have witnessed from afar: HERE is a moving target. And your little hamlet is no more safe than my big city or his quiet suburb. Any town's name can change to HERE, USA in a heartbeat, or sadly, the death of a heartbeat.
So, obviousness of message aside, here is the other thing I am taking away from this PSA:
We all are taken by surprise because we - well, the vast majority of us - are decent, loving, compassionate people. Of course we invest in the little romance playing out in front of us because that is what we believe in. We believe in heartstrings, reaching out, young love, old love, all love.
And that just reinforces for me that what I cling to, what I desperately need to believe, is still true: The good people of this world still outnumber the bad.
Yes, keep your eyes open, pay attention, pay more attention than you think may be warranted (you literally may save lives), but never lose the innocence that still lives in your hearts - the innocence that allowed you to get swept up in Evan's search for his library table soulmate.
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