Playing Santa

I promised I would post about what Mr.C and I were up to all day Monday and hopefully I can get it done while E is having her piano lesson right now.

Mr.C (besides his day job) is also a commercial real estate investor/developer. This is kind of a family business, brothers, fil and others are always involved. Anyway so Mr.C is friendly with a lot of tradesmen that he uses regularly for his projects. On Sunday night, he recieved a phone call from the owner of a construction company that is currently working on a project for Mr.C. He was telling him about one of his employees whose wife had become ill and had to be hospitalized. They have 3 school-age children. They have not done anything for Christmas and can't really afford to because of hospital/drs copays etc. He called Mr.C because he wanted to help out the family somehow and he knows how we adopt a family every year so he was asking for some ideas of what he could do. This is what we did:

Monday morning while no one was home, guy at work, wife at hosp, kids at school, we sent our cleaning service to the house. (I used my time slot) We also had the husband's sister in on this as well. Otherwise I don't know how we would've been able to get in the house! Mr.C and I went shopping. We bought an artificial tree and decorations. We bought toys and clothes for the kids and a few things for the husband and wife. We went food shopping. Then we went to the house where we were met by the owner (the guys boss) and the husband's sister. We set up the tree, decorated and wrapped all the gifts. Filled the fridge/freezer with food. It took pretty much all day and we were exhausted!

I can only imagine when the guy came home with the kids and the kids calling up mom at the hospital to tell her all about it!

This is what I love about the holidays. This was completely last minute and it worked out so well. The guy has no idea who did this or even that his boss was in on it (well actually it was his idea!)

I am sharing this because the happiness that this brought me as well as the family we had already helped means so much to me. Also I wanted to share the holiday spirit. Because to me the holiday season is about love and selfless giving. I am not going to get all preachy but you know what I mean. The true meaning of Christmas.

I know that when I hear of a random act of kindness it always inspires me. When I heard of someone paying the toll of the person in the car behind them, I started paying for the person behind me at the drive-thru. And I do it every time I go. Now it may not be too often, I don't like McDonalds or fast food, but we do end up there... And I think maybe they are then inspired to do something nice.

Just in time...lesson is over (only 30 minutes). Happy Holidays.