12 Days

So my family started this tradition last year when we got the idea from my sister Nicole. She had done it the year before to a family in Smithfield and was telling all of us how awesome it was and how it was such an incredible experience for her. After looking at all of her pictures and listening to her stories, we all decided that we wanted to participate in this too. Last year we were all together for Christmas at my parent's house so we found a family in West Jordan. She was a single mom with 2 daughters and were having a lot of problems with her ex-husband and money. They weren't going to have much of a Christmas. So we did the 12 days of Christmas for them. We gave them something every day to decorate their house, do activities as a family, we gave them a lot of food on one day and of course the last day was presents for everyone, all done anonymously. It was so amazing and really brought out the true meaning of Christmas.

This year is our off year so our family won't be together, but we decided to still do the 12 days only this time, Angie found a family in Colorado that we are going to do. 2 kids that are living with their grandparents who just lost their jobs. We all pooled some money together, used our discounts at various locations to get presents, asked for donations from other places, or just flat out bought presents, clothes, hats, and gloves for them. Angie has been organizing the whole thing from Colorado and using our money to buy some things like food and clothes and keeping us updated the whole way. I'm not blogging about this to toot my family's horn and talk about how giving and awesome we are, haha, but just to remember this and express how amazing it is to see everyone working together to help out a family in need. All of my siblings are getting involved with discounts at stores and money, my parents get involved in this, 2 of my aunts helped us out and my cousin used her discount as well. Everyone realizes the true meaning of Christmas and is willing to help this family out to give them a great Christmas. It makes me love this time of year just to give and see their reaction because they are always so grateful. I'm so glad that my family does this and we get to spend Christmas focusing on someone else. I can't wait to see these 12 days happen!