Our OCC Boxes

Have you heard of Operation Christmas Child?  It's a program through Samaritan's Purse and I am shocked that this was the first year I heard anything about it.

I probably say this every year but when I was little one of the most important parts of the holiday season was choosing my "Christmas Angel" from the tree at church to buy gifts for.  Thankfully my parents had the means to help with this charity every year because it really instilled in me the desire to do good for others.  

Now, as a parent myself, I want my girls to grow up knowing that there are others out there who don't have everything they have.  Far too often we think about people who have more than us, instead of focusing on those who have less.

But I have struggled, and truthfully failed, at doing this.  Thus, I'm glad to have found this organization that sends Christmas boxes to needy kids all over the world.  

So here's what we did:

One afternoon Shyla was making poor choices and then pronounced that she needed Starbucks.  So she and I went to the store but instead of getting Starbucks, we filled our basket with things for other little girls.  We spent most of our time in the dollar section of Target but we also hit up the arts & crafts section and then Big Lots.  I gave Shyla the brochure so she knew nothing was for her and she could see pictures of little kids holding their boxes.

We decided to fill 2 boxes - one from Shyla and one from Harper.  Simple shoe boxes filled with the following things:

pens, socks, a puzzle, toothbrushes, toothpaste, band-aids, crayons, coloring book, sunglasses, pencil case, wash cloth, soap, chap-stick, book, playing cards, stickers, and a little picture and note from us.

We packed the things into 2 normal shoe boxes that we had laying around and attached a scanable tag.  We paid the $7 shipping online and linked it to my email address.  If all goes well, we will receive an email telling us where our boxes were delivered to (insert geography lesson here!)

I am always looking of ways to make Christmas more about helping others and less about getting gifts. If you have thoughts or ideas, I'd love to hear them in the comment section.