Don't we have it all!

Sweetie and I have been at the local dollar stores buying items for our Christmas shoe boxes. We decided to purchase plastic shoe boxes with snap-on lids instead us using cardboard shoe boxes. We figure they can be used for a long time and are relatively water proof and perhaps insect proof.

It was an interesting experience since there were several other people in there also buying for their shoe boxes. Two older teenage boys were having a blast! They were buying all the things that they had enjoyed as younger kids. One woman and son were buying things he liked since they always buy for a boy the age of the son.

Miss Willie and her family (daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter) picked up 20 shoeboxes from Kingsland last week. They buy items all year and then when the boxes are available they have a great time filling them from their year's worth of goodies. It is part of their Christmas tradition.

Not knowing where the boxes will go creates somewhat of a dilemma. Many countries do not have the same customs that we have. For instance -- pink for girls and blue for boys. Much of the world does not make that distinction. Babies don't have pastel blankets with Disney animals. In Africa they like bright colors -- "baby" designs are not sought after. If, on the other hand, the boxes go to American children the characters on them will make a difference. i.e., Dora the Explorer for girls and some boy character for the boys. (I'm out of touch -- who are the boy characters now?) If the kids don't have TV, they don't know about Dora or Speed Racer, transformers, Star Wars, etc., so then it doesn't make a difference.

We looked at gloves -- but we don't know if they are going to a country that will need gloved at this time of year.

Scrunchies seem a good choice for girls but you often see little girls with short hair in the TV commercials for different kinds of aid. Perhaps it is easier to keep clean if they keep it cut short. We bought Care Bear clips. Will they know what to do with them? Perhaps the people who arrive with the boxes will show them.

Anyway, it was fun and was a lesson in dealing with basics and necessities. In a recent GMA show a woman was there promoting the shoe box program. She had been a recipient of a shoe box when she was a child and it was the first gift she had ever been given. What joy that must have brought.

If you aren't doing shoe boxes this year I encourage you to think about doing so.