Christmas spirit

OK, so maybe I'm a little slow at getting my Christmas tree out, sorted, put together and decorated.  And maybe my brain skirts around the idea that Christmas is coming really really soon, and Mr Man hasn't asked me what I want yet.  But I did get into the Christmas spirit on Monday, and I really enjoyed it.  For a couple of reasons.

Me and an almighty pile of stuffed toys.

 Instead of work, I went and volunteered to help the Salvation Army.  My employer gives all employees two days a year to go and do charity work on full pay.  Its nice.  I like to save one up to do something at Christmas.  One year I did gift wrapping at a local shopping centre (mall?) and took home lots of paper cuts, but an awesome amount of gift wrapping skill.

So what did I do with the Salvos this year?  I helped unwrap, sort, organise, and allocate all the donated gifts that come in through the Kmart wishing tree.  I will admit, the unwrapping was a massive kick back to childhood Christmas mornings.  Ripping open paper and ogling the toys inside was great.  Then we organised into nice big big piles.  Really big piles (see picture of me with lots of stuffed toys).  Then we got a list, which had a list of the sex and age of the children in the family that needed presents, and I got to go round and choose them. 

This pile is nothing compared to how many they will get during the Christmas period

I did one day.  The Salvo's will be doing this every day till Christmas.  Its an amazing effort, and very humbling to see how generous people really can be.