Goal 100. Do a Samaritan's Purse Shoebox

I love Christmas! For some reason I have always loved everything about christmas and winter. Maybe it's because I grew up in an area that rarely had snow, so I always loved the idea of snowy days inside drinking hot chocolate by the fire. Or the decorations. Or the music. Or the gifts. I love it all!

I have been planning for Christmas for a little while already, including writing wish lists for Prince Charming and I, developing my gifts-to-give plan, and planning my decorations. I have been looking at Pinterest a lot!

But one of my favourite activities that usually marks the beginning of christmas is filling a shoebox with gifts for an anonymous underprivileged child. I support Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child, by filling a shoebox that will be given out as a christmas present to one of these children. Usually charity just means writing a cheque or sending in some used food or clothes. But this charity event is actually really fun!


Today I got to go to Wal-Mart (ok, that's not the fun part) and spend a bunch of time in the toy section and looking at fancy school supplies. I don't have kids, or any relatives with kids that I see very often, so I NEVER get to go to these sections. But today I got to go around buying whatever I thought my 10 year old self would want. And didn't feel bad about it at all. Plus the shoeboxes are pretty small, so its best to go to a dollar store, which makes pretty inexpensive.

If you want to fill a shoebox please do! Many churches, schools and other civic groups fill out these boxes, so I am sure you can find a group you can drop you things off with. Or you can go online an "adopt" a box.

Just for ideas here are the items that I used to fill my shoebox. I chose to do one for a girl around 8-10 yrs old:

Toothbrush, toothpaste
Soap
Bright yellow washcloth
Brush and cute hair clips
Lip gloss (this is not really something you're supposed to put in, but I made sure to get a liquid based one in a plastic container that screws tight, hopefully they'll let it go!)
Socks with fun designs
Disney Princess bandaids

Notebook
coloured pencils, eraser, sharpener (remember the sharpener!!)
stickers

beading set with thread and various beads
bouncy balls (actually 5 of them)
baby elephant stuffed animal
weather's hard candies

Also I am going to send a letter and picture of Prince-y and me. Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking wrote a great article about the importance of the note. It's a great read.

I hope that I have inspired you to fill your own shoebox. So go get shopping! It might be the most fun you have shopping this christmas season.