Warm Fuzzies

They're delivering the gifts and food this afternoon to our 4 Adopt-a-Families.

Years ago Hans started this in his Engineering Department. At that time his department was given one family with several kids for whom everyone chipped in. It was so overwhelmingly successful that the next year they provided for two families. Now they do four.

Since the beginning, Hans and I always provided the Christmas dinner: turkey and all the trimmings plus a copy of my turkey soup recipe and all the ingredients. Yesterday we put together the food boxes: Each box was wrapped in Christmas paper, the shiny foil roaster at one end with the soup recipe pasted into it with a cheery red bow. I tied each bag with long and colourful curly ribbons - the onions, turnip, celery, carrots, potatoes, etc. There's a bag of spices (including bay leaves, paprika) and barley for the soup, cans of chopped tomatoes and garlic to perk it up.

The families don't know who all the donors are but they do have a contact name in Hans' department. One year I received a wonderful thank you letter from one of the families. It turns out that they had fallen on hard times since the dad was laid off and subsequently was diagnosed with throat cancer. He had had surgery and still couldn't chew very well, and was so grateful for the soup recipe.

So yesterday as we packed up our four boxes, I thought of him. I hope he still makes the soup.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Now THAT is a Christmas gift. How wonderful. I think things like this are the gifts that really matter.
Anonymous said…
Good for you two. Last weekend when we were in RD, Kennedy asked what charity meant, (she was reading signs). When I explained what it was, she immediately took her allowance she got earlier in the day and donated it to the Rainbow society for sick kids. I started crying right there in Bower mall.
The Christmas spirit is truley visible in people like you and our children.

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