Lucky Us...

That sounds sarcastic. I wasn't meaning for it to be.

I do a lot of complaining on Hobbs Adventure, but this one's actually not to complain, it's to be thankful.

This year at my work, we decided that instead of buying gifts for our clients like we normally would, we would donate the money to a charity instead.Well, instead of just donating money, we decided to donate 70 sets of coats, scarves and gloves to a local elementary school.

Why, you ask? Because I found out that there was a whole group of kids there who couldn't go out to play at recess because they didn't have winter outerwear.

We dropped off the coats this week at the school and met about 20 of the kids (around ages 5-10). We sized them and got them their gifts. These kids were adorable - so polite and so thankful. It was absolutely, positively heartbreaking to think about them not having something as basic as a coat.

The principal was telling us a few things that were just terrible: the kids get depressed around the holidays because there's no school. When there's no school, they don't eat since there's no school subsidized breakfast or lunch and it depresses them.

The teachers there don't talk about the holidays or decorate for Christmas. They don't want to remind the kids about something they most likely won't experience like getting gifts.

So I guess this holiday, we should really count our blessings this Christmas for the little things - being able to have a Christmas, having a job, having a meal whenever we want, being healthy...or having a fabulous baby Squirt (even if he does cause kidney stones, ugly belly buttons, massive weight gain and charliehorses) :)