At the moment, I do want to fall back asleep. However, I find myself such that if I don't write now, I will never write today.

My family opened our presents last night. We don't usually do this, but since my mother and I had to wake up early to participate in the Mysterious Santa project, she figured it was best to open them early and let the other family members sleep in. I didn't get the gift cards I was expecting, but a got a few items.

I received for Christmas two Barbies, a holiday 2000 one my mother got off eBay and the small holiday Barbie you can by at the grocery store; 2003 Atlanta Braves calendar, a new keyboard, a collector's rabbit plate, and Sleepless In Seattle. Oh, and lots of socks! Socks seem to be eaten in our home. So, new socks isn't a bad gift for me.

My mother and I work up around 5 AM this morning to get ready for the Mysterious Santa project. We met other volunteers at the church used as the base. One male volunteer, while, I guess he was a volunteer, walked by me and said something that caught me off guard. I'm still not sure if it was double-entendre or not. As he walked by me, he said "Nice Bells." True, I did have some bells on my reindeer antlers I was wearing. Still…

The fruit and toys that were donated for the people Santa visits were separated into groups for the helpers to load into trucks and then transport them to places Santa would be visiting. My mother and I got on the route to visit 4 different places.

The first place we visited was Coastal Harbor Treatment Center. Maybe I'll cry about it later. I'm like that. Things that will affect me won't hit and make an impact on me until later. The toys were to be distributed here. It mostly services children and teens that for one reason or another, can not be cared for. We didn't have enough toys and some of the kids in the last group just wanted a teddy bear. It's sad. We were told another Santa would come with the toys for them. Still, it didn't do my mother or any good to hear that. Especally after the teddy bear remark.

But, no matter who you are and what ever seems to be the matter with you, for a child, I guess more toys wouldn't hurt, even if it's just a teddy bear. Another thing I felt we could have done was broken the toys down by sex and age groups. That could have made the distribution of toys a bit smoother. Maybe next year.

There was one toy I didn't think needed to be given to any boy there at Coastal Harbor. Someone donated a dart gun and it was mixed in with the toys we had. The children there are there for a reason. I doubt the last thing any child at this center needs is a dart gun. I didn't let any of the first group of boys see it. I pulled my mother aside and showed it to her. She pulled it out from the box and hid it under her poncho. On our way to another floor, she showed the rest of our group the gun in the elevator. They all laughed at it and the Coastal Harbor employee escorting us around the premises was grateful we hed it out.

And, when I get a job, I think I'll try to set some money aside and buy a few toys to get to the children at Coastal Harbor next year. Even if I buy just a few teddy bears, it will be a teddy bear that will mean something to someone next Christmas.

The four other places on our list, 3 nursing homes, and another facility for adolescents, I didn't visit with the residents. Nursing home number 1, we didn't really need to make a visit. It was a place that had people that could mostly care for themselves. Santa took the fruit into the place quickly. The second home, had such a small number of people, Santa and three helpers went in when my mother, a teenage girl of a lady my mother knows around town when she sees her, and I stayed out. Since the frst stop at Coastal Harbor, I was the Raisin Girl. We had plenty of raisins to give but they were wrapped in plactic, six boxes to a pack. They needed to be open. So we that didn't go into the second home but instead got the fruit packages ready for the third nursing home.

Yeah, I guess I could have toured nursing home number 3 with Santa and the two older lady helpers. But nursing home number 3 wasn't any old nursing home, it was Tara; the first nursing home my Grandmother was place in as a resident. I remember what that place l

Posted by Shawn at December 25, 2002 4:43 PM in General.