12 Days Before Christmas

As I mentioned before, we were having a hard time getting into the season this year with Christmas.  Between feeling lousy and preparing/having the house on the market, I felt like we were losing our Christmas.  After some thought and prayer I decided to try a secret 12 Days of Christmas.  Because I was short on time and energy I copied one I found off of the Internet that was pretty simple.  It also had a good mix of stories, candy, and misc items that we would deliver.  It was very simple to put together. 

We also wanted to try and stay anonymous which meant we had to be careful about the family we chose.  We decided against anyone on our street and also decided not to choose someone from our church.  This really limited our options but opened up school friends.  We decided to choose Reagan's best friend, Brooke, from school.  Her family lived close enough but didn't know our van and would never suspect us. 

Each night after dark our entire family piled into the van and delivered that days' surprise.  Marcus and I thought that Marcus would do the knocking and running but after one evening, Reagan wanted in.  So they traded.  Every night they took turns. 

It was so fun!  Even if we were having the worst of days that little 10 minute drive and drop-off would change everything.  The family jumped into the spirit of Christmas and I didn't hear anything about what they wanted for Christmas, just excitement for this family. 

One night when we dropped off our gift there was a container of cookies and a note in child's handwriting asking who we were.  This just helped with the excitement.  We knew they were enjoying it as much as we were. 

Another night, Marcus and I were going on a date and had to pick up Laura, our baby-sitter, on the way to the drop off.  Laura sat in the front and I explained what we were doing.  (Our routine was to have Reagan jump out the front door and we would leave the door open so when she came running, she would jump into Marcus' lap, he would shut the door while I drove off.)  Laura had to be the one to catch Reagan.  I felt bad originally but afterwards Laura's mom told me that she had a ton of fun and loved being a part of it. 

On Christmas Eve we went with the intentions of revealing ourselves but the family was already celebrating with their relatives so we left a note telling them who we were.  Two days after Christmas the Mom called to thank us.  She said it made Christmas for them and they saved everything to repeat for someone else next year. 

I would say doing this project changed our Christmas.  It made our challenges easier and less noticeable.  It helped the Christmas spirit fill our home.  I think everyone in our house would agree that it was the best part of Christmas.