Today I took the kids shopping at Dollar General to fill their Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. I like going to DG because it keeps the shopping concise and simple, which is key when you have three little shoeboxes to fill and many small helpers.
The children had a good time shopping and put a lot of thought into what they would want to receive in a box, while at the same time having zero expectations for buying treats for themselves.
Xavier set his sights on giving his little boy this red shiny noisy fire engine. I hope his little recipient loves shiny noisy fire engines. He also very carefully chose a darling wind up dinosaur and was determined to send all 10 of the combs in the package he bought instead of splitting some out into a ziplock bag. His reasoning?..."den he can share dem wif his friends in case dey don't get one." Good plan, son.
Natalee, my sweet Natalee. DG had a shirt for Mia's size and I'd bought and put up a shirt for Xavier's box, but we had none for Natalee. I told her it would be okay, and that maybe we'd snag one at Wal-Mart, but she was really unsettled at the thought of her little girl not getting a new shirt. Without prompting she went upstairs and chose an almost new shirt of her own that is getting too small. I looked it over and found nary a stain or mark on it. Even though the pamphlets say to send nothing used I can't make her switch it out. I think God will use that little shirt given in sweetness and love. Of all her clothes, she didn't choose an old t-shirt...she chose one of her nicest ones to give away. If life choices only came that easily to us all. We also added a jump rope to Natalee's box after we took this picture. Nothing beats jump roping in sparkly flip flops, right?
I love the sweet flip flops, princess shirt and matching princess bows that we got to put in Mia's box. I can just about picture some little precious girl wearing them.
Put it in the box, Mia.
I forgot to buy ponytail holders for Mia's box (maybe b/c she doesn't need them yet!?) so I decided to split the ones we bought for Natalee's. These Mary Kay containers that my eyeshadow came in worked great!
We packed the boxes, then repacked them, and then unpacked and showed it
all to Daddy when he got home and let him repack them one.more.time.
The kids' green/red boxes got full so we upgraded to plastic boxes that I
had in the closet. We used the bandana liner idea that I sniped off of
Pinterest instead of wrapping the boxes and they are quite cute.
Daddy is helping Natalee move her stuff to the plastic box.
Ameliya is showing Daddy her goodies:
And, never to be outdone, Xavier had to dive through his box to show Daddy what he chose:
I had set a budget for our shopping and when we went over I was humbled in knowing that the amount we'd gone over was covered almost exactly because the friends whose little boy I'd watched this morning chose to gift me with a full day's daycare pay instead of the half day charge I'd given them.
Furthermore, I am humbled to remember that the complete total of a child's Christmas gifts might likely be the amount we chose to spend on the items in that shoebox. And then I'm grateful we overshot our budget.
I am humbled to think that bar soap and a toothbrush can be considered Christmas gifts.
Before we pay the shipping and send our boxes off we will write letters and print pictures to tape inside the lids and then we will pray with the children over the boxes.
We, the Beelers, challenge all my bloggy readers to try to complete just ONE shoebox before the collection deadline. If you aren't local to me and need help finding a drop off center, please holler and I'll try to help. In my blog tools I have a counter that shows me how many "hits" a blog post gets...I know that almost 80-100 of you read my posts. If all of you filled ONE box, that would give 80 children a gift this Christmas. Do.it. Believe that God will provide for your needs and stretch yourself. You'll be glad you did.
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