What does Christmas mean?

[intarsiabox]

My wife grew up pretty poor and her happiest childhood memory is one Christmas when her parents said there was no money for any presents or a Christmas dinner that year. They went out to a relatives house on Christmas eve for a little party and when they got home there were all kinds of presents under the tree and a couple of big food hampers. These all came from Santa's Anonymous and because it played such a big part in her life and really taught her generosity from the heart we always buy lots of toys for the charity. Even when we just started our lives together and very little we knew that others had even less and so forwent our own gifts to donate to others. Nowadays we like to get our kids involved by choosing gifts and having them spend a little of their allowance on donations and we also try to deliver presents and food hampers for the charity as well. I was really busy last year with all the snow and unpaved roads as lots of volunteers had to cancel, luckily I have a 4x4 truck so I just kept going back for load after load until all the presents were delivered.

I give to various charities all year but Christmas is special to us and we become a lot more generous during the holidays! And we want to return the feelings my wife got years ago to others less fortunate and hopefully give them the same feelings and hope that she received.

Merry Christmas everyone!