Christmas Crazy Vol. 14

A very long time ago, we ~waves generally around the internet~ started a thing where we make sure that kids receiving services from a Pittsburgh Domestic Violence shelter (Center for Victims, to be exact) have a very merry holiday season. In the thirteen (yes, 13) years that we've done it, over $100k worth of toys total have found their way into the hands of kids who maybe weren't having the best of days.

It's a pretty amazing thing, this thing we've done.

So we're going to do it a fourteenth time.

But this is the last time.

Now simmer down, oh wonderful people of the internet. There are a lot of reasons why I need to wrap up this brand of chaotic good that I've somehow conjured. I don't want to go detailing all of them, but have faith that this thing is time-consuming and difficult and I've been barely getting it done the past few years. It deserves more and I frankly don't have it to give. I can pull it off this year because luck fell in my lap, but it's going to run away from me very quickly.

So let's send it out with a bang, please?

If you're new here or have just plain forgotten, here's how it works: I post an Amazon Wishlist all over the internet. Absolutely fantastic people select items from it for the kids receiving services from Center for Victims. The items are shipped to me, I prep and sort them, take a photo of an always impressive mountain of kindness, and then deliver that mountain to Center for Victims in time for them to distribute them to their child clients. There's also a PayPal link if you're more of a cash kind of person. That cash gets turned into gift cards that also end up in the mountain of kindness that is delivered each year. I get nothing (except warm fuzzies! I get lots of those!), there's no overhead or administrative costs or any of that, and the staff at Center for Victims gets to focus on the fun part of playing Santa.

It is genuinely a gathering of the best parts of the internet working together to deliver joy to kids who have seen the worst of humanity.

So! Let's get to it!

Here's this year's Amazon wishlist. More items will be added in the next week or so. And here's the PayPal link. We've got until December 7th to do our shopping because delivery day will be around December 10th.

(The photo is of 2021's Mountain of Kindness. Let's go bigger this year, please and thank you!)

We're Going to Do This One Last Time

(Catch up on what "Christmas Crazy" is here. Last year we sent over $12k worth of toys to Center for Victims. Let's do it one last time.)

The Costumes, 2014-2022

I don't know how it escaped me in the past, but there is no definitive post with all of the girls' Halloween costumes include. Let's fix that! Especially because I've only got one more year with both of them here!

For what it's worth, Alexis has started to realize that she allegedly moves out for college after next year. That's the exact reason she worked really hard to collaborate on a costume idea with Mila this year. She only gets one more chance.

Enjoy that dose of OMG. I know I did.

ANYWAY.

Elvis and his guitar.

Fred Rogers and Ginger Astaire (still a favorite because wobbly toddlers wearing wigs while chasing candy are very much so tiny drunk people)

Puss n Boots and Humpty Dumpty (Humpty Dumpty rode in a wagon that made to look like a wall)

The Red Queen and The Mad Hatter

Taco Belle (If only people had gotten the pun ...)

Elliot, Gertie, and ET (Best Gertie ever? Best Gertie ever.)

Catwoman and Harley Quinn

Lilo and Stitch

Mother Gothel, Rapunzel, and Pascal (Mila ABSOLUTELY agreed to this because she could force me to buy a stuffed Pascal)