These are the little thoughts that spring to mind as I cuddle under a warm blanket, a child snuggled in my lap, as we gaze at a room lit only by the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree.

‘Tis the season for giving.  This should be more than just giving a toy to your child, that already has more than enough toys.  They may want a Transformer, but they don’t need a Transformer.  This is the time of year when we reflect on the “goodwill towards men” credo, and it really propels us to consider how we can be better…and do better.  It is something we should embrace during the whole year, but it seems so much more important right now…during this season of joy and hoped-for peace. 

I previously spoke about the Operation Christmas Child project, which I truly enjoyed doing (and sounds like others did, too 😀 ).  I wish the boxes could have been FAR larger, as I know we would have filled them full of wonderful gifts for the children in need.  There is so much more to do, though.

This past week I hosted a baby shower, of sorts.  It was more of a charity shower.  The recipient of these wonderful gifts is a local crisis nursery shelter that takes care of children in need and supports families.  I originally heard about the nursery through my boss, as he gave me a donation to the nursery for Christmas one year.  I loved that idea to donate to charity for a Christmas gift and the charity is one that has done a lot of good in our community.

My goal for this year was to get more involved than just writing out a check, but knew my time was limited as usual.  I almost balked at doing this event, but it was actually fairly easy to plan and execute.  I just invited everyone I knew in town via evite.com, and had wine and appetizers on a weeknight.  Weekends tend to get all booked up, so I thought a weeknight would be good.  Even some of the ladies that couldn’t come gave me a gift outside of the night, and they are still trickling in.  It was a whopping success!

See how giving my friends are?  Thank you ladies!  You are all definitely showing the reason for the season.  Now I just need to find a little time to get over to the nursery to drop off their gifts!  I feel like Santa!  😀

I’d like a stocking made for a giant,
And a meeting house full of toys,
Then I’d go out in a happy hunt
For the poor little girls and boys;
Up the street and down the street,
And across and over the town,
I’d search and find them everyone,
Before the sun went down.

–Eugene Field (“A Christmas Wish”)

* A great way to spread charity through gifts, is to give a gift certificate from justgive.org.  Your recipients can choose from a huge list of charities and decide where they want to put the gift to use.  I did this a few years ago for gifts to my office mates and it was received very well!

**This post is going to serve as my Wrapped Emotions participation for the week.  The theme was lucubration…get out your dictionary for that one!