Good Gifts

This year, instead of exchanging Christmas gifts with our good friends Heather and Grant, we decided to instead adopt a needy family together for Christmas. We called Ballard Community Services here in Lawrence and they got us hooked up with a single mom with three children. They gave us the ages, genders and sizes for each child, as well as a few toys on each of their wish lists. We also received the mom's sizes and some household items that she might need, and then we were charged with the task of getting each person in the family an outfit as well as a gift from their wish list. Heather and I first set off to find clothes for the mom, which turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be! We had no clue what she did for a living, so we weren't sure if we should buy her jeans or casual clothes or business clothing--it was really difficult! We decided that whatever she did, we wanted her to look nice, so we picked out a pair of black pants with a beautiful red sweater. Even if she doesn't have many occasions to wear the items together, hopefully she will get some good use out of the items separately!

The next day we gathered up Chad, Grant and their daughter Quillen and headed back to the store to pick out clothes and toys for the kids. The guys did a great job picking out clothing for the two boys, and we girls picked out a cute little outfit for the four-year-old daughter as well. After the outfits were complete, we all headed over to the toy department at Wal-Mart (only because they has specifically asked for Wal-Mart gift certificates, so we figured they already shopped there) to pick out some toys for the kids. We had to do a lot of searching to find some Dora the Explorer gear since it was pretty picked over, and I did have an argument with Chad and Grant about purchasing a basketball for one of the kids who actually asked for a football. Aside from those small challenges, it turned out to be a fun experience, albeit a little more expensive than we originally thought it would be! Heather and Quillen came over the next night and we spent the whole evening wrapping packages, and then I dropped off said packages at Penn House on Wednesday. The staff and volunteers there delivered the presents directly to our family over the weekend. As Heather put it, it would be really nice to be a fly on their wall on Christmas morning so we could see their reactions to the gifts. Hopefully we picked out some things that they really like and can use!