Donation

Today I made our much anticipated Toys for Tot's donation!!

When I first started to make plans for our donation this Christmas, I considered picking an orphanage or a hospital or something that I could make a donation to. I found one orphanage that had some information up about donations, but they were so... 'demanding' (understandable). They had a list of specific items they wanted, and quite frankly, it was items like xboxes, ipods and other things that just seemed a bit pricey. So, instead, I decided we'd go with the well-known Toys for Tots. They have drop boxes all over the place, so it made it very easy to do.

Well, today I decided I would make the donation. We're getting closer and closer to Christmas and I didn't want to miss the deadline. So, I loaded Jude up and took a hike over to Toys 'R Us to pick out some toys. I specifically went because I thought it'd be pretty slow in there during the day, but boy was I wrong. The parking lot was packed and they had just about every register opened! I was surprised... but I guess it makes sense to do your shopping while the kids were at school. There were moms and dads and grnadparents everywhere armed with multiple carts, pages of wish lists and calculators to keep track. One lady who was pulling out when I got there had three carts FULL of toys.

Anyway - I made my way inside and did a little looking around. I planned to get a few board games and to try and find some toys for kids around Jude's age. If this is something we continue to do, I hope that we can continue to get toys for kids who are around Jude's age, have similar interests, etc.

We ended up with a little more than half a cart full of toys. I was surprised at how quickly they add up (and even more shocked that the lady above left with THREE carts!). I was specifically looking for things that I would buy for our son. I could have easily cheaped out and gotten a bunch of items that were super marked down, but I'm sure they get plenty "candyland's" and 'chutes and ladders'.

We ended up with a shape sorter, a soft tonka truck, a couple of board games (sorry, scrabble and Life), a wooden hammer and nail-type set, a giraffe clutch toy, a dinosaur clutch toy, block letters, a bucket or dinosaurs, wooden building blocks and I think 1 or 2 other items. I'm pretty sure if I had unlimited funds I could have shopped for hours.

When I went to check out, I told the cashier not to worry about bagging it, because it was all going in their Toys for Tots drop box and she looked at me like I was crazy.

All in all, it was a very rewarding shopping spree.


Done:
40. Skip celebrating Christmas one year and donate any money we would have spent on the holidays to poor children who otherwise wouldn't have a Christmas - go as far as telling anyone who would have bought us a gift to donate to a charity instead of gifting to us

Also in my initial post stating that we would be donating this year, we mentioned having a holiday party. Unfortunately I don't see that happening. We're already a matter of weeks from Christmas and haven't even begun to put a party together. Also, the house is mid-electrical construction. It's a bit of a bummer, but oh well... sorry to anyone who was excited for it. It might be a nice way to re-ignite the donation flame next year.