Season of Giving

Today I was just completely overwhelmed. I spent all morning at the Salvation Army office, which is completely stuffed with gifts for families in our county. Not only is it stuffed, but they have filled an armory across the county with gifts. It was overwhelming, the outpouring of giving this year. Just to try to imagine that it goes much farther than the SA, there are churches, like ours, giving tens of thousands of dollar, Toys for Tots which is collecting for children everywhere, many non-profits who are collecting for the season.

Today, a bus load of people from a company stopped by to drop off their first of three loads of gifts. The company adopted several Salvation Army families to buy gifts for and for the whole day the bussed their employees around to purchase the gifts. In fact, when I was done for the morning at the office, I ran a bunch of errands and took off from Walmart when I saw their bus pull up! It was busy enough already!=) What a great idea for that company - I was completely impressed!

After seeing all that people have given, I went shopping for a wii game that my mom is giving to Kt. She ordered it from buy.com back in November, was sent a notice that it had shipped just before Thanksgiving, but it never arrived. Fortunately, the company believes her (or deceived her!) and they are refunding her money. I looked at four stores and it was sold out. Talk about being unenamoured with the materialism that is so rampant at Christmas - and feeling like you are buying into it!! I came home feeling rather defeated and then found it on Amazon.com for $10 less than it was listed on there last night. Yahoo! Yup, totally guilty as charged. I'm a material girl! And I love to be the problem solver.

I just have to say, that for all the selfish, materialistic people I've seen, I have seen the most amazing outpouring of generosity in that as well. I am completely impressed by the wealth I see around me, not because it's so negative as it is being used as a vehicle of giving in such a big and abundant way. Thanks, folks in Howard County, for thinking of others this year.