Tonight we did a few of our annual Christmas traditions. Each year we pull together a ton of toys to donate to Christmas is for Kids. I take many of the extra toys from reviews, Toy Fair and even more events and add them together along with toys that we buy from money that we’ve saved over the year. We bought those toys on Monday. So we put them together and bagged them up to bring on over to the Christmas is for Kids drop off location. This was the first year that the kids and Allison came with me. While there we got a tour of the operation which is pretty big because of how many families they help.

We got to see the main room where the bags are set up with matches for the kids. I was really impressed by the system and there were so many toys in the room. Andrew and Eva were so excited. Luckily they understood that the toys weren’t for them. They actually really like going out to buy for other kids and I think that Eva and Andrew may volunteer when they are teens. I’m personally considering donating more than toys next year and helping out however I can. We’re also thinking that instead of just simply getting a bunch of toys that we adopt a specific child and get things for them.

After we were finished with our toy dropoff we headed over to the La Salette Shrine. We do a trip there each year followed by dinner at Bliss Bros. Dairy.

We took the Mazda CX-5 which was the perfect color, red. It had plenty of room for the toys and was nice and comfortable for the trip.

One thing that Eva wanted to do was the kneeling steps. So, I watched Andrew, and tried to take some photos, while Eva and Allison went up the stairs. She is a very special little girl.

While Andrew and I waited for Eva and Allison I took some photos of a few things. I had brought my tripod and NX500. I set up the tripod to take some photos of the Nativity scene that is set up next to Clopper the donkey. Andrew liked visiting Clopper and also getting a candy cane next to the donation area.

I also caught a photo of Andrew by the lights.

When we met up with Eva and Allison we decided to go inside and see all the nativity sets. Before we went inside I took this photo of Eva. We didn’t stay much longer than after viewing the nativity scenes. It was getting cold and late so we headed to Bliss Bros.

Dinner was nice. We were all in our special hats. I picked up some Christmas themed hats for everyone and we enjoyed wearing them.

After dinner we got dessert, which is what you must do at Bliss. Then we took some photos together. It is one of my favorite family traditions that we have.