CARE PACKAGES

CARE PACKAGES

Early in October my daughters got together and decided that this year the family should draw names instead of trying to buy Christmas gifts for each one in the family.

True, the family has grown, and it gets tougher to buy presents for everyone - surely this way, we can buy something REALLY NICE for one person and not feel like we "should have" gotten something for all the rest.

I've had a strange reaction to this, after forty-four years of making sure that no one in the family was forgotten. Somehow I never thought too much about my pocketbook, for I started shopping early, and hid presents away until the great "Wrap It Up Day".

My joy and expectation of happy faces as they opened the gifts was one thing I would miss this year. We can each expect one gift. Oh, I'm sure the girls will have it a bit easier - but where is the excitement of a dozen little gits?

Well, I said to myself, I'll go along with it. Then I got a message from a Marine in Iraq, who said it would be great if they could be remembered at Christmas-time with some care packages. Yo! I said to myself, and went on a shopping spree. Not content to leave it alone, I enlisted the aid of friends, family, and the organizations I belonged to. Care Packages were on the way, and for me, it helped fill the "gap" of a missing family tradition.

It will be a different Christmas, but as we gather together as a family, the biggest gift of all is love. We have that, and I am blessed.

And for my extended family in Iraq, those men and women who are laying down their lives and whose lives will never be the same, I will be eternally grateful.

They have made my Christmas already. My family being together at Christmas is the topping of the Christmas cake!

Countrymom
12/3/04