Helping Families In Need — Delilah’s Reflections

It's that time of year again to start planning out the holiday shopping and think about what to buy for your family and friends.

However, what could be better than giving to more than just people you hold near and dear to you? Delilah explains one family's tradition of giving to a family in need rather than just receiving gifts themselves.

It may seem like I’m sharing this letter about a Christmas tradition too early, however, it falls in line with a great cause many charities, schools and churches start right about now. Read John’s letter and discover how wonderful it feels to give Christmas to a needy family…
About five years ago we started another family tradition for Christmas. Except for the younger children, we stopped exchanging gifts across families. Instead, about this time of year someone in our family nominates a family-in-need for us to supply food and gifts for everyone in their family for Christmas. We then agree on the family we will help. We always get these names from a school or charity as we want to ensure this is a bona fide family in need. We determine the age, genders, clothing sizes, and the particular items that each child has requested.
We then divide the list up with our families choosing which gifts and food that family will supply. A few days before Christmas we take the food and gifts to the school or charity for distribution to the family chosen. Sometimes we get to take Christmas to the family directly. However, we try to make our gifts anonymous unless the family receiving the gifts expressly wants to know.
It is amazing what our grandchildren think about shopping and giving to the needy. They get excited and help with shopping and wrapping the presents. In fact, we started this tradition still giving gifts to the children between our families. Then one of our teenagers said that he wanted us to take the money spent on gifts for him to be used for gifts to the children in the needy family. Then the other children joined in and they soon understood the joy of giving instead of receiving. We have already selected our family for this year and will start our shopping. The excitement begins.
John