T - Seven Days (Giveor Take)

There's about one week standing between us and the point when I need to close up shop on Christmas Crazy. It takes time to make sure all of the packages make it to the right place and Santa needs to get organized and Christmas on a Tuesday is weird and and and and ...

We've got a week to pull this all together.

Right now, we're about $1000 worth of toys behind where I would like to be. And, thus, I present to you 5 reasons you should go jump on that bandwagon.

1. Center for Victims, the organization which gets 100% of what comes into Christmas Crazy, served over 15,000 people in 2016 and 2017 (per the most recent annual report that is available). Of those 15,000 people, 1/3 were kids. Children. Humans under 18 years of age. That's 5,000 kids who have lived through or witnessed or been impacted by an act of violence.

That's too many.

2. While it can seem overwhelming to try to make a difference when there is a lot of hurt in this world, this sort of thing does matter. Somewhere there is a little kid who is hoping for a Barbie or LEGOs for Christmas and you can make that happen without leaving the comfort of your home or office or wherever you happen to be.

3. I know things are tight this time of year. Like, I KNOW. That's another bit of beauty with this project. A $5 Barbie can go to the exact right kid and it can be joined by a $5 stuffed animal and suddenly your $5 doesn't seem so small. I say that as the parent of a child whose biggest wish list item this year is a book. Sometimes it doesn't take much to make this year better.

4. Remember that episode of Friends where Phoebe and Joey keeps arguing about the existence of a selfless good deed? THIS IS ONE. They do exist. You get to put a little good into the world and the only thing you get back is a warm fuzzy feeling because you did something good and ... oh. I guess it's not totally selfless. It's close, though.

5. It's the tenth year we've done this. It would make me immensely happy to have it be at least as big as prior years. It would be weird to go backwards, right?

To recap, if you won't do it for the kids, maybe you'll do it for me. If that doesn't appeal to you, then do it for yourself. All the cool kids are doing it.

Links to do the helping are over here.