If You THINK you are Unable to help at Christmas time.......THINK AGAIN.

My husband thought of the neatest idea for us to be able to give to those in need, without hardly spending a dime. I was so proud of him for being the generous, loving,  person that he is every month of the year. I thought I would share this article with you in hopes that you may be able to help someone in need also.

We had dropped our kids off to their Nana and Papa's house to spend the weekend, and set off for time to spend to ourselves. Nana had some gingerbread house making kits ready to go and I think they were in for a fun weekend of spoiling to begin.

We got home and researched once again the tornado that our house had become. We were looking at the kids rooms and the mounds of toys in both of their rooms and we decided that a clean sweep needed to be done. I was packing up books that no longer held their interest, and toys that were sitting lonely in their toyboxes into large black trash bags. I was going to store them in the garage until Spring time, when I usually have a big yard sale.

My husband suggested that we take all the toys and books that we didn't need any longer and donate them to the local treatment center. I thought it was a wonderful idea. Lenny works at our local treatment center in the detox unit. He is blessed with greeting all of the alchoholics and drug addicts with the subtances still in their systems.

One wing of the treatment center houses women and their children. There are several women in the residential setting right now recovering from their addictions, and their children are there with them. My heart aches for these kids. They will be spending Christmas with their Mom's in a treatment facility. Most of these mothers don't have any money, many don't even have a home because of their addictions. Alot of times they are assisted with transitional housing after treatment, while they get a job and back on their feet. It's not these precious kids faults that their Mommy's have a disease.

My husband and I went through every book, toy, or stuffed animal that our kids didn't need anymore. We made sure they were in good condition, no rips, stains, tears ect. and put them all on the kitchen table.

After we got to looking at all of it, we decided that we may just have enough books to match every toy and organize them into age groups.

So we set off to wrapping gifts. The infant stuff animal, with the tiny board book of colors, the little car with "Goodnight Moon", the doll baby with "Cinderella" and on and on. We put on the Christmas music and went to town.

There was even a small pair of winter boots I found that were my daughters and still in great condition. We thought we would stick them in unwrapped and hopefully they would make their way to a little ones feet that need warming up.

When we were done wrapping, we ended up with about 18 gifts, all included a book and a toy. On each gift tag, I wrote "To a little girl, age 2-4---from Santa Claus." All of them differing on the gender or age. We put them in big giant black trash bags so no one would be able to see what was in them until the big day. My husband delivered them to the womens wing of the treatment center yesterday with stict orders that they were to be given to these children on Christmas Day.

My hopes in sharing this article was to encourage you who think that you may not be able to help to THINK AGAIN. There are women in your very own town who are in Abuse Shelters. They were forced to leave their abusive husbands, many with children in tow, and they have nothing. You can go through your closets and find clothing of ALL sizes, and shoes that you no longer wear, books, ect. and donate them to your local womens abuse shelters. In places like that, ANYTHING is much appreciated because these women have nothing.

If you are blessed with having secure finances, check out your local hospital, namely your Childrens Cancer Center. There are many children in there who's parents are struggling tremendously with finances. These children would love a stuffed animal or new book for Christmas.

There are just so many in need this Christmas. I wanted to encourage you to do what you can. Donations of stuff like what I described above don't cost a dime. Merry Christmas to all of you.