Photo-A-Day #2430
Today was the Annual Christmas is for Kids Toy Drive sponsored by Achin’s Garage. We’ve been saving a small amount of money each month so that we would have a decent sum with which to buy toys. I also got some great toys from different companies that I could donate as well. Before we went to drop off the toys we set them all up and Eva got to pose with them.
One of the companies that sent me a ton of toys was Squinkies. I have a couple of sets of Squinkies that I display on my desk (Hot Wheels and Marvel Superheroes) and we’ve gotten Eva a bunch of Disney Princess Squinkies, too. I’m a fan of these little toys and think that they look pretty decent. I love shooting photos of them with my macro lens. The Marvel superhero ones look great and are very fun. So, I got a big box of great Squinkies toys and they told me that I was free to donate them if I wanted to do so. I have plenty of them and Eva has a bunch so it made sense to donate them to Christmas is for Kids. I almost kept the Cars 2 Squinkies set though.
For the rest of the toys we went yesterday and bought a bunch of our favorite stuff at Target. We picked up Transformers, LEGO, HEXBUG, KRE-O, Sky Ball, Littlest Pet Shop, My Little Pony, Bizu, Hot Wheels, Tinkerbell, Skylanders and Crayola. Here is the whole haul in one shot.
This year the venue of Christmas is for Kids moved from the Community school to the Achin’s Garage. I personally thought that the Community School location was better because there was parking. Achin’s is located in a very busy area with little parking but it is higher visibility for the garage and I like to see the get more visibility for doing such a good event. I showed up right as they opened so the truck was pretty empty however I heard it was a good day so I think the truck filled up pretty good by day’s end.
I loved getting to go to the Christmas is For Kids event but today was my first day after my first day back to work after Andrew was born. So I came right home and napped for about 2 hours. Then took Eva to Dance and then went to Christmas is for Kids. I got back home, after I stopped at Hess and picked up a Hess Truck for the kids for Christmas. I hung out and stayed awake for a bit because Allison’s brother and his family was coming to visit. I eventually went and napped for a while longer. Woke up and had a quick visit and lunch with them and then back to bed. I hope I got enough sleep and don’t end up face down on my keyboard tonight or tomorrow morning, more likely.
I just wanted to say that this makes me smile! What a GREAT family tradition and what a wonderful gift you are giving to your kids to show them the true joy in giving and in thinking of others!
I love that Sarah and Achins have made Christmas is for Kids such a big deal in our community as well.
We decided to start our own tradition to instill in our kids the same understanding of just what Christmas should be all about and will be donating to our local animal shelter as our holiday tradition.
I think we’ll be stealing from your tradition, however, and start saving money monthly as well ~ this way the kids can watch the funds grow, think about the “giving” all year, not just in December, and look forward to the shopping trip!!!
Thanks for sharing Bennetts!!!!
Joy,
Thank you for the comment. I appreciated it very much. I like that you guys donate to the local animal shelter. MY sister does a lot of work with the shelter and we’ve done things with them before as well. We got our cats through the shelter and would always adopt shelter animals.
Glad that you are interested in doing the same tradition as us. Who knows, maybe we can get a large group of families all doing the same thing and make a morning out of it. That would be fun.
You are doing something wonderful for the kids every year and I know they’ll appreciate it!
Deborah,
Thank you. I don’t think that any kid should miss out on gifts on Christmas.
I think it is great that you as well as so many others participate in these Toy Drives. I hate to say this, but our Family is going to have to depend of one of these somewhere here. Well My kids are. Work is so hard to come by here and My Son who was oer in Iraq when he came home has had difficulties ever since in finding work. His wife had a good job , but just had a risky childbirth to where she was put on bedrest for 3/4th of her pregnancy. When it was time for her to return to work, her employer only gave her 2 or 3 days a week.. Well daycare for 3 kids one being an infant.. sigh, well many know that problem. My other Daughter is a single mom to my Darling grandson who just turned 1. She is struggling to be ble to give him anything. It is the same everywhere.. we still have a 16 year old at home, we are trying to do nice for her. But of course we want to help with the 5 grandkids (3 sepr. families) But me being on dissability for Multiple sclerosis, my Husband the wonderful man that he is can only do so much.. So I wanted to personally thank you for your swagsgiving as a way of trying to help those who need it..
Merry Christmas,
Cherie