No replies to this topic

[alishaR]

Christmas can be a difficult time for people when money is tight. Especially if there are children involved. One thing my kids and I love to do is pick a few families and buy gifts for them and play secret Santa. Shopping for them is so fun, and sometimes it involves some guesswork because we don’t want to let on that we are doing anything for them. We want it to be a huge surprise. We try to get an outfit for every member of the family, toys for the kids, and usually something nice for the parents as well such as coffee mugs, or something for the kitchen or maybe just coffees and teas. I leave it all up to the kids. They even manage to make sure we put something in the box for any pets the families have.

After we do the shopping, we bring everything home and the kids and I wrap it all up and then load each family’s box up with their gifts, add some extra things like the cookies the kids have baked and things like that, and then we wait until later that night.

Going around to each family’s house and sneaking up to the door is the kids’ favorite part I think. They will take the box and sneak up to the porch, doing their best not to be seen, and then ring the bell or knock and run like crazy.

None of the families we’ve done this for have discovered who their secret Santas are and we prefer it that way! It’s so much more fun to hear them talk about it with excitement and know that we gave that to them.

Each year we’ve added another family, so we are up to 5 different families now. We don’t do the same families every year so we can help more than a few families and I see us doing this for a long time to come. I hope that my kids continue this tradition with their own families. It’s definitely given a lot of happiness and fun to our family and it’s taught my children that not everyone has as much as they do, and that being grateful and thankful and also help others is what Christmas is about.
It really is my favorite time of year.