Christmas Giving

With Christmas just a few days away, I'm reminded of an old family tradition from when I was younger that epitomizes the Christmas spirit and good will towards man.  

Growing up, my mother would host a food, clothing, and toy drive in our neighborhood every Fall for Serving People Across Neighborhoods (SPAN), which is a local nonprofit in Severna Park that is dedicated to helping people in need. She did this for at least 10 years before allowing someone else in the neighborhood to take over. 

SPAN has a "SPAN Holiday Caring Program" which is basically a program in which you sign up and are assigned a family with children and you donate food, clothes, and toys for the children of that family, based on the information you are given in terms of the child's interests, clothing sizes, food allergies, etc. You select the number of families and how many children per family you would like to gather food, toys, and clothes for Christmas for when signing up. My mother would sign up every year before Halloween and would request between 10-15 families with a variety of number of children. She'd then send out an email to the neighborhood with a names of the children, their ages, and their interests. 

People in my neighborhood would sign up or ask to be assigned the different children and they would gather, buy, or collect their assigned category of items or items for their given child. Some people wouldn't sign up for a child, but would donate food or old toys or clothing anyway. 

From about the second week of November to the week before Christmas, people would be delivering donations to my house. Mom always stored them in our large dining room. We have a dining room table that traditionally fits between 10-12 people (even though we cram about 15 into it each Christmas) and that was where my mother chose to compile all of the donations each year. By about mid-December, we've have to start putting boxes on the floor, because the table was completely full. 

The week before Christmas, my mother would host "wrapping day", where our neighbors would stop by or come for a few hours to help wrap the presents for the children. This was always my favorite day, because the house would be filled with my neighbors, who would be busy gabbing and wrapping presents. Every room of the first floor of our house had a wrapping station with materials for people to use, and every year all of the rooms would be filled. I loved to help wrap all the presents for the children, even at a young age. 

My mother would always insist that the gift tags be signed signed "Santa" rather than the names of the people who donated them or our neighborhood name. She wanted to keep the Christmas spirit alive for these children, rather than take credit, even if it was deserved. 

Once all the wrapping was done, we would fill up both our cars, my grandparents two cars, and the cars of several neighbors who had volunteered to help and we would deliver the gifts and food to SPAN. One year we were even in the Severna Park Voice and The Capital for how much my mom was doing for the community. 

That tradition has always stuck with me and affected the way I see the world and how I go about trying to help others. It has always popped into my mind during the holiday season and always makes me appreciate the things I have and puts me in the holiday spirit of helping others in need. I hope it does the same for you. 

Merry Christmas!