Operation Christmas Child: Donating Gifts To Children In Need.

*This goes on every year. Just google the exact dates for that year.*

There is still time to donate for the Christmas 2015 season but it's best to put this on the top of your To Do List since there is a small window of time to donate in order for the kids to receive the gifts by Christmas.

November 18-25 is National Collection Week at Samaritan's Purse. Chick-Fil-A has partnered with Operation Christmas Child and some of the locations (like Any Orange County locations in Southern California) have extended it and you can drop off shoeboxes filled with gifts until November 30, 2013.

Setting aside religious and/or political beliefs if they conflict with either of the companies involved, we need to think of the children who will ultimately be getting these gifts. When you give the gift of a Christmas present, 100% of what you give goes to a child. So when you send school books, a child in need will read them. When you send a soft, huggable stuffed lovie a child will feel safe and warm snuggling their gift at night. They don't care what you believe, they don't care if you don't even celebrate Christmas - they will just appreciate the love and the hope is that some of these children will be inspired to complete the circle of giving and in their own way pay it forward to give to others someday.

This is the reason to give right here. Give for the chance to fill these kids with pure joy and love.

Age category for shoeboxes: Boy or Girl: 2-4, 5-9, 10-14.

What to give: Start with a larger toy, such as a stuffed animal, car, or doll. Add toys, school supplies, and hygiene items. Do not include used items, war-related toys, chocolate or perishable foods, liquids, medicines, or breakable items. 

Here is the link from Samaritan's Purse about volunteering with them and/or making a donation of a Christmas box. They are asking to please send $7.00 to cover shipping costs for each box and if you donate that online you can follow where your box goes. You can also follow them on twitter.

Chick-Fil-A has teamed up with them and some of the locations are an official drop off location. They are even giving a coupon for a free sandwich for each filled box you bring in. If you don't eat there for whatever reason you can give your coupon away to someone who would love a free sandwich. Unfortunately, there are many homeless people in our world right now and if you drive a few blocks around your own house you will find someone to give your free sandwich coupon to.

The point is to give back, pay it forward and share the love.

Please join our family today in going to pick out gifts for children in need who, most likely, will not be receiving a ton of presents under a beautiful Christmas tree this year. We have a 5 year old and a 3 year old and we are letting them pick out their own box for a child who is their age and my husband and I will make gift boxes for the 10-14 age category. In the past when I have donated items to shelters and even when our family hosted a Pajama Drive a few years ago for the Pajama Program (a company who is near and dear to my heart) we learned in talking to the people working at the shelters, that many older kids get neglected during gift giving time because so many people want to help the babies and the small kids, which is wonderful don't get me wrong. However, we need to remember that older children and teenagers are in homeless shelters too, or in foster care and they need love too. Sometimes they need it more because they see more and know more.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Please check back to my blog as I will be posting about our family donation to Operation Christmas Child this year.

Peace, Love & Light

Coco Cana

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Give Back: Family Christmas Project: Holiday Mail For Heroes

This weekend my family and I took some time to make out some Christmas cards. The kids colored and painted them with watercolors and added colorful Christmas stickers (and my lil guy insisted on putting some of his Disney Planes stickers too), we wrote long, hand written messages and included a beautiful quote about bravery and courage. This isn't too far from the norm during this time time of year when our Christmas cards get written, only this time we weren't including little tidbits about the kids and how we spent our year and there wasn't a family photo of us at Disneyland or riding our longboard at the beach. Actually, we don't even know the people we are sending them to. We were writing letters to active duty service women and men serving in the US Military during Christmastime for the Red Cross Holiday Mail For Heroes project.

We've had many military men in our family from our grandfathers on both sides of my husband's and my family who fought in WWII to uncles and my father-in-law who fought and served during the Vietnam War and cousins and my brother who served in various branches of the military protecting this great country of ours. In the late 90's my brother was in the Military Police - K9 division and he and his trusty bomb sniffing dog, Tanja would work alongside secret service helping to protect then President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton (then First Lady) and then Vice President Al Gore who were speaking or visiting in a particular area. 

We consider ourselves to be a pretty red, white and blue loving, patriotic family and love the beautiful USA so writing Christmas cards to women and men serving our country and helping to protect our freedom was a perfect thing to do as a family, especially since they are away from their families, friends and loved ones at Christmas. I found some silly cards from Trader Joe's I bought last year in one of the Christmas boxes we had gotten down to decorate our tree. (We were really on top of it this year and decorated everything the weekend of Thanksgiving!) I had 6 cards left so I decided to write out 6 in order to get them mailed off today so it will make the Dec. 6th deadline. 

My husband and I figured it would be fun to get a silly card and a picture the kids made for them. I found a beautiful quote by Alexander Hamilton on bravery and wanted to include that as well. I considered typing everything up and pasting it into the card since I do not have the best handwriting, but I wrote them by hand instead. I think it will mean more that way. My husband actually has very beautiful handwriting so I will get him to write some out next year. This time he was helping me by entertaining the kids with hanging Christmas lights and decorations around the house. Our goal is to double our card load next year. I'll be sure to stock up on cards during the after Christmas sales and will get an earlier start. 

You still have time to send out your own cards. They need them in their P.O. Box by Dec 6th. So if you send it today it will probably get there. It only takes one card to make a difference and brighten someone's day!  Here are some specific guidelines from the Red Cross website that they would like you to please follow:

Card Guidelines:

Every card received will be screened for hazardous materials and then reviewed by Red Cross volunteers working around the country.

Please observe the following guidelines to ensure a quick reviewing process:

• Ensure that all cards are signed.
• Use generic salutations such as “Dear Service Member.” Cards addressed to specific individuals can not be delivered through this program.
• Only cards are being accepted. Do not send or include letters.
• Do not include email or home addresses on the cards: the program is not meant to foster pen pal relationships.
• Do not include inserts of any kind, including photos: these items will be removed during the reviewing process.
• Please refrain from choosing cards with glitter or using loose glitter as it can aggravate health issues of ill and injured warriors.
• If you are mailing a large quantity of cards, please bundle them and place them in large mailing envelopes or flat rate postal shipping boxes. Each card does not need its own envelope, as envelopes will be removed from all cards before distribution.

All holiday greetings should be addressed and sent to:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

The deadline for having cards to the P.O. Box is December 6th.
Holiday cards received after this date cannot be guaranteed delivery.

 These are the cards we made for them this year. 

This one is my favorite. 

This is what we wrote on all of our cards this year. 

This was the bravery quote we chose this year.

The cards get removed from the envelopes so I stuffed each envelope with 2 cards and didn't decorate them with stickers, etc. like we would usually do. Next year when we send more I'll just put them all into one puffy mailer without any envelopes to make it more efficient. 

This is the masterpiece colored by my lil guy who is 3 years old. And of course the Disney Planes movie stickers he wanted to add. 

This was one of the watercolor masterpieces my 5 1/2 year old made. She is really into black cats right now. I think it's a hold-over from Halloween. I normally give her free reign with her artwork, but for the sake of this being a cheery Christmas card I was "strongly encouraging her" to add a little color to lighten the mood!  haha!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you!  May you have fun spreading some love, joy and Happy Holiday wishes to people around the world who could use a little extra love.  We are all so fortunate and have so much and it doesn't take much to give to others. Sometimes (like these cards) all it costs is a little of your time. I hope this inspires you to Give Back this year. Please let us know what you did as a family in our comments section!

Here are some more ideas to inspire you! 

Peace, Love & Light

Coco Cana

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