Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Ummm, Take Two!

Oh, My Honk!!!


Who do-ya suppose made this mess? My Giving Tree didn’t even make it 24 hours. Sheezzz!

Well now you know why breakables aren’t something that last too long around these parts.

Being a wee bit scatterbrained like I normally am, I first put our little tree on a small table at the bottom of the stairs knowing full well that dirty clothes get tossed over the edge periodically throughout the day.

Apparently someone with poor aim tossed a heavy towel over the edge and it caught enough branches to send it to the floor. The glass vase was shattered to near dust. Good news is that the glass marbles were nigh indestructible. Who'd have thunk?

And who was that someone???

Sigh – ME!!! See my kids are doomed.

So I found a new base – Glass, because you know I love to tempt fate that way. Fixed the tree back up and put it in the furthest corner of the room where only the dust mites hang out.


Then I loaded the entry table with kid friend nativities that could handle a few knock-downs over the course of the month.

I can almost guarantee that they will find the floor sooner rather than later.


So tonight, our family read the story of ‘The Littlest Angel’ by Charles Tazewell, for our family service project, and talked about how the simplest gifts can often be the best.

Then after opening another bag on the tree we scoured the house looking for loose change.

We are going to donate it to ‘The Heifer Project’. It’s one of the fundraisers that are going on at my girl’s school. Actually there are several charitable causes petitioning school families to contribute to. The reason I choose this one was because it revolves around the oldie but goodie phrase of.

‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’

The farm girl in me loves that this organization gives farm animals to impoverished people around the world and teaches them lessons on how to use the animals to become more self-reliant and contribute to their families and communities. And finally they are taught how to pass their livestock’s offspring on to another person in need.

So, after we cleaned out the laundry room, cars, couch cushions, purses, and coat pockets we were able to come up with a small cupful of change to donate. I know with the purse strings being tight in a lot of households giving $ is hard to do. But every little penny helps. If everyone donates their loose change for one month, imagine how many people around the world would benefit from a good cause.


After our money dig we let the kids have a cup of hot chocolate topped with mini marshmallows and a Hershey’s Chocolate Mint Candy Cane. Just a little bit of heaven for the taste buds. See even Abner agrees.


Only I didn’t take into account that the sugar would spazz up my kids something fierce right at bedtime. You’d think I’d have learned that lesson by now. Oh well.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oops! On the upside, if your kids are anything like mine, they love it when Mom makes a mistake, because then they know they’re not the only ones!

On another note, I LOVE the tree idea! Although, admittedly, the first thing that came to mind for us was to use it as an Advent Calendar. I've been looking for something reusable, unique, and not requiring a garage addition to store. Your tree idea fits the bill to a "tee," and I will graciously credit you with the design idea when** I get lovely compliments on it from friends at family at the holidays (**i.e. I hope that the one I create is as delightful as yours thereby inspiring lovely comments on it)!

And, lest I feel too guilty for converting your charming service/giving idea into a receiving idea, I will remind myself that the kids are asking for donations to the WWF in their names instead of gifts for the second year in a row this year, so we are obviously doing okay on the giving vs. receiving front.

~Susan:)

Sara said...

Let me guess---in the interest of frugality, you painstakingly picked all those little marbles out of the shards of glass to reuse them instead up just sweeping it all up and throwing them away?

I love your tree. We need to work on getting the Christmas spirit here.

Natalia said...

It looks great, and hopefully will stay safe over there :)


I love the idea of scrounging up all the spare change and donating it.

When the nieces all come for the summer I have to remind myself every night to steer clear of sugar, lol! Their Mom is super strict about that so if I slip up, they're wide eyed and bushy tailed till 1 am!!! ACK!!!

Jonathan and Cheri said...

Your giving tree really captures the meaning of the season - great idea!

Trena Doll said...

Hee hee...I was wondering how long the tree would stay upright...Glad to know you've got the big CRASH out of the way so quickly and can now move forward with your holiday season fun!

How are the kids responding to all of the service...are they into it, or rolling their eyes and saying 'Aww, Mommm'?

Susanne said...

We love Heifer International, too. We donated to them two years ago and probably will again this year. It's such a great concept how they pass on the offspring!

Faith said...

Well, when you have to clean up everyone else's messes all the time it does a mommy good to clean up her own mess for once. I'm loving the Veggie Tales nativity. I have been thinking about getting one of those for my kiddos... And I'd like some hot chocolate too please.

Suburban Correspondent said...

Every once in a while I try to have some cute decorative breakable whatever in my house...

Never, ever lasts.

David managed to break the pot to the coffeemaker today (not that that is cute and decorative, but...). Of course we were having guests this evening who we knew would want coffee, right?

rkimedes said...

Change counts!

When I wa sin college, the way I'd save up for Christmas gifts for everyone was I'd empty my pockets of change every day and put it into a jar. At the end of the year, I'd have about $100 of "free" money. It really adds up!