Then I got an idea; a wonderfully...wonderful idea! I asked Lindsey if she thought that the Young Single Adult Ward that she attends would be willing to help out. And she immediately put a post on their facebook page. And she immediately got responses:
"What do they need?"
"What do they want?"
"Can I help?"
"I'd like to do something."
"Are gift cards OK?"
"This is what Christmas is all about!"
This was looking to be fantastic!
On the Ninth Day of Christmas we still hadn't even started on one of our favorite holiday traditions: The Gingerbread House. So I spent that morning baking the house; we'd build and decorate it together on Sunday.
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| baked and ready for the next step |
On the Tenth Day of Christmas, after church and after lunch, our family built the house—even Bruce helped with it! I had already contacted a friend and asked if her kids would like to have a "pretty fabulous gingerbread house." (I don't think she was expecting it to actually be as "fabulous" as it was. 😉)
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| The girls put in the colored "glass." |
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| The windows are glazed, the frosting is made, and Kaylie is putting the decorations candies into dishes. The sugar-wafer cookies are for shutters—an innovation this year —and we used them to make the front door, too. |
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| And construction is under way! And this time around we didn't drop or knock over any pieces. Yay! |
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| The kids bricked up the front of the chimney with PEZ; the bricks on the side were more of a precision job. If you look closely you can see that Jessica is using curved tweezers to place a brick here. |
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| Bruce and Kaylie put on the finishing touches. The roof design was new this year, too. We pressed the criss-cross pattern onto the roof pieces before we baked it. Kaylie added most of the frosting and candy. |
We finished the house just in time for dinner. Of course, we had to take pictures before we ate.
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| front |
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| left side |
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| back (One of the kids (the little kids we gave this to, not my kids) was really excited about the candy canes on the back.) |
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| right side (The Christmas tree is made of sugar-wafers smothered in frosting and green sprinkle-sugar. Yuck. I mean, cute, but yucky.) |
We delivered the house right after dinner; I don't think we even cleaned up first. When we arrived, our chosen recipients had guests over—including two more children. 😊 The grown-ups couldn't stop talking about how amazing the house was, and asking questions about the making of it. But the little kids were the real delight—they were so excited! As soon as they saw their house they flocked to it, and hardly left it the entire time we were visiting. Their oldest boy, who knows me, hugged me and said, "I didn't know you did this!"
Such fun!
Also, by that Sunday, the Tenth Day of Christmas, we had already received some snuggly blankets for each child of the little family we were helping, and a few hundred dollars in gift cards and cash. This was looking to be more than fantastic!
On Monday, the Eleventh Day of Christmas, Lindsey and I were out shopping again—this time for another family than our own. Gifts were still arriving at the house, and we were packaging, wrapping, labeling and boxing them up. That, along with our own family holiday preparations, kept me up until midnight. But, although I was tired, it was just fun to be part of the excitement and generosity of everyone who had helped out.
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas I was still running around helping my kids with their projects. We were cleaning house, making the ciabatta rolls for dinner, and making treats for Christmas Eve. I put a message out to my ward to see if anyone would be willing to deliver a ready-to-cook Christmas dinner and the wrapped and boxed-up gifts to our little family; I had a response within minutes. And then another, and another. Since the second and third-in-line helpers missed out on delivering what we already had, they offered to get more gifts, or give cash to this family. Almost as soon as the first big delivery was out the door, another big box full of gifts and treats arrived! Fortunately I was able to send that out with my second-in-line elf (who also kindly offered to wrap all of these new gifts).
I soon received a text from Elf Number One saying, "Thank you so much for letting us help with this. The kids [of the little family] were so excited!" And later Elf Number Two sent a text saying that the box of gifts had been wrapped and delivered. Yay!
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| Although it would have been delightful to see the reactions of our family when the gifts were dropped off, or to have pictures of Christmas morning, that obviously would have defeated the purpose. I trust that they did, indeed, have a Merry Christmas. |
It was so exciting to see all the eager love and support that the young adults (ages 18 through 30) and my own friends were sending to a family of strangers. Everyone who participated in the gift-giving and in the delivering of the gifts thanked me for letting them be a part of this. It was truly wonderful, and it filled my house—or at least me, my own heart—with a glorious happiness.
Whoever said it was right: This is what Christmas is all about!
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