You blink and summer’s over. You blink again and it’s bonfire night. All of a sudden it’s time for the Christmas shoe box appeal. How did that happen already?
Every year my mum and I make up Christmas boxes together – our tradition.
This year I was smugly patting myself on the back at how organised we were ordering everything so far in advance. Here was me thinking this year we had nailed it, better than all the previous years….
Until my mum checked the drop off date only to find out it was last week…
So much for organised!
Thankfully I spoke to Blythswood today and they confirmed we had another week for the final drop off – PHEW!
And so the night of being knee deep in toys, hats, scarves, pens, crayons, notebooks, jewellery…(it’s a long list) commenced.
This could have become very stressful. A 14 week old puppy running around like he was in Aladdin’s cave and two very tired humans trying to decide which box gets what.
Thankfully we didn’t let it. We chose not to get stressed and overwhelmed. Instead, we chose to take a deep breath and enjoy it.
This is something we love doing every year. It makes us feel happy knowing someone, somewhere, will get to open a mysterious box full of fun and exciting things at Christmas. If we didn’t do it, it would be one less box for someone in need.
We can’t change their life. We can’t take away their hardships. We can’t remove their pain.
We CAN let them know someone out there in the world, a total stranger, cares enough about them to send it. I hope it makes them smile. I hope for a moment in time their life feels a little brighter. We can’t do much but we can do that.
This year we once again made 16 Christmas shoe boxes – 3 for babies, 5 for girls, 4 for boys, 3 for women and 1 for a man. We were aiming to beat last year’s (we can be rather competitive!) but settled for jam packed boxes bursting at the seams. There’s always next year!
Christmas shoe box appeal 2019
You can find information about the Christmas shoe box appeal on Blythswood’s website click here.
Written by Julia Donald at Cognitive Vitality Psychotherapy in Inverness.