A Little Holiday Giving

I haven't posted for a few days--sorry! First The Boy came back from college, then Lovely Daughter #2 flew in from the East Coast, and all I want to do is hug on them and talk to them and cook with them and....

But I managed to do a little holiday giving the other day.

When our children turned four years old, we began giving each a weekly allowance. Part of the money had to go to into the charity box each Friday night. The Hubby and I put coins in, too. This is our humble, ugly little charity box:

I love it to bits. We made it, as a family project, when the kids were quite small. (That's supposed to be a cat resting on the lid. Hah!)

Each December I'd count up all the money with my kids, drive them to Target, and then I'd let them pick out whatever toys they wanted with the money we collected. The three of them had great fun seeing how far they could make their dollars go. (I think it helped them become good bargain hunters, too.) Then we'd drive to the local police station and donate our goodies to their toys-for-tots program.

The kids have flown the coop, but I still put money in the box (and bug The Hubby to, also, when I think of it).

And I still gather up all the money each December and go buy something for the under-served children in our city.

My favorite thing to buy is books.

I found a bunch of "chubby" books--glossy, cardboard pages suitable for toddlers--that were "buy two, get one free" at the bookstore. Won Ton and I took the books over to our local police station, where they had a tree in the lobby:

He looks sad, but inside, he's just as thrilled as I am to do a little holiday giving.