December Fun: Giving A Little

One of my favorite holiday traditions is one that my college besties and I began about 5 years ago. We've always gotten together during Christmastime and celebrated in some way. However, we decided that instead of spending money buying each other a bunch of stuff we do not need, we would do something for someone else with our money and time.

So, every year since then we have "adopted" someone to buy gifts and necessities for during the holiday season. This year, we adopted a set of brothers that attend the school where one of the besties is a teacher. On the same day that we got together to shop for the brothers, we also decided to volunteer our time packing holiday care packages for soldiers. 

We started off the morning by meeting for breakfast at the local Village Inn. We called it our "old lady" breakfast :-). We were {by far} the youngest people there.

Angie & Amy

We were all looking a bit tired . . . it was early!

Chelley & Kendall

After breakfast, we went and packed care packages. We didn't pack all of these ourselves, but we did work hard for several hours!

After box packing (and a running-out-of-gas incident in the middle of busy Christmas traffic . . . yikes!), we headed to Target to shop for the brothers. Shopping is always fun . . . we were able to buy them both several outfits, some winter gear (including coats), and a few toys from their wishlist.

Amy with the loot:

As always, we had a fantastic time together. I hope that we continue this tradition for a very long time. Even though what we do isn't huge, we hope that we are making a difference in someone's life.

Don't forget to give a little of yourself this season!