Operation Christmas Child

In an effort to preserve some heavenly treasure, I hadn't planned on making this story public...but then...I became a fan of Operation Christmas Child on Facebook.  Through it, I came across this contest to write about our family's shoebox story, sponsored by www.reallifeblog.net.  What a great idea to raise awareness for OCC's important work to underserved children around the world!  ...and the Veggies Tales prize is cool too :) 

 

Our journey to this year's EXTRAVAGANZA began a decade ago, when my husband and I started dating during college.  We wanted to dedicate our relationship to the works of the Lord, so that first Christmas, we decided that we really weren't interested in receiving gifts from one another.  We both had great love for children, and decided to have a child represent each of us and purchase a Christmas gift for him/her.  Mike bought a little girl's present, and I bought a little boy's gift.  We dropped our gifts into the Toys for Tots bucket that was placed at Phelps Gate on Yale's Old Campus.  For the next three years, we did the same...sometimes two presents...it's hard to choose just one toy from the toy department...hey, at least we dropped them in the bucket...ok, sometimes it was hard, but we did it :)    

Before we knew it, it was time for us to get married (by the way, that is literally how he proposed:  "Ducks [he calls me Ducks], I think it's time we get married."  HAHA!  After a beautiful wedding day in my hometown of Chicago, we took two weeks and crisscrossed the country in a rented Buick, hitting all the cities and national parks we'd always wanted to see.  It was our version Route 66, which started in Chicago and ended in LA.  

 

We settled in Orange County, California and started to build our little nest.  Traditions are important to both of us, so we decided to continue the "adopt-a-child-for-Christmas" one.  We had been giving to some of Samaritan's Purse's disaster relief funds, so by the time the holidays rolled around, we were excited to participate in its Operation Christmas Child effort.  What you do is pack shoeboxes with things that will bring joy to a child and these shoeboxes get delivered all over the world with a message of God's love for them.  That first year of marriage, we packed a box for a girl and a box for a boy.  As we settled into our work, the holidays were a time for us to reflect on how bountifully God had been to us in every way that year, and every year, there was always more bounty to share.  By our fifth Christmas together, we were packing multiple boxes for multiple little girls and boys.  We always looked forward to that big, joyous shopping trip to Target.  We loved discussing the needs of our adopted little people together.  We loved playing with the cool toys in the toy department together.  It deepened our love for one another and helped us look forward to parenting.   

This year, it all dawned on me!  Since my husband and I have been married, we have added a sister-in-law (a wife for Mike's older brother), a daughter (our little Vera) and a brother-in-law-to-be (a fiance for Mike's younger sister) to the Sy clan.  With one exception, every single one of our birthdays falls in the fourth quarter for the year.  Including my in-laws, we have birthdays on: Sept. 26, Sept. 30, Oct. 23, Oct. 24, Nov. 26, Nov. 30, Dec. 10, Dec. 17...and Jan. 18.  Samaritan's Purse's actual collection week is in mid-November, falling smack dab in the middle of our birthday season.  Ding ding ding!!!  This would be the PERFECT birthday event for our family!  

 

My husband and I would succeed in 1) Getting those we love involved with a work we love 2) Collectively setting an example for succeeding generations in our daughter's very first year  3) Helping our family practice good stewardship of our material blessings (imagine the excess of nine rounds of birthday gifts and then immediately nine more rounds of Christmas gifts!).  Our entire family bought into the idea with enthusiasm.  I'm so happy to be able to share these pictures (originally taken for the family photo album) from our new Sy-Family-Operation-Christmas-Child-In-Lieu-of-Birthday-Gifts Extravaganza (SFOCCILOBG for short...hmm...I'll have to think about that one...)

 

We decided to "adopt" 9 children- 4 boys and 5 girls- to represent each member of our family.  We selected the 10-14 yr old age group, reasoning that it might be an under-served population, being harder to shop for...and what a ripe age to hear the Gospel!  We committed $25 per person.  Here are some of our finds ready to be packed: forks/spoons, note pads, crafts, toothpaste & brushes, sample size lotions, stickers, toys and on and on.  We also solicited dentists and dermatologists for product samples....these boxes were gonna rock! 

 

The hardest part about the whole operation is wrapping the boxes.  You don't have to wrap boxes or even provide your own boxes, but we wanted to find nice BIG man-shoe boxes that would fit all of our goodies and give them a festive look...so the children might feel special.  My sister-in-law and mother-in-law (pictured) were very adept at wrapping! 

Here's Mike's brother giving his wife a massage and moral support for the wrapping effort.  What love!

 

Here are Mike and I at the effort.

 

The superior box-wrapping award definitely went to Mike's younger sister, who finished wrapping three boxes in under 20 minutes!

Then we stuffed our boxes FULL!

 

Here I am trying to help my 10-month-old reconcile with the idea of putting an incredibly interesting object into a box.  Hopefully, she gets happier about doing this as the years go on :)

 

Vera much preferred the director's role with Grandma!

Here's Mike checking the boxes for equanimity.

 

 Finally, we scooted around the dining room table signing all the cards.  Well, the last thing was a prayer time for the kiddos, but everyone had their eyes closed, so no picture :)

 

And this was our fun-filled birthday party which went well into the night!  Now we just have to wait until collection week.  HAHA!  We're excited that this year, you can actually track your boxes by donating the shipping fee online rather than via check: https://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/EZ_Give_Donations/

Make some warm fuzzy love of your own!  Start a family tradition that involves others!  It's the best.