The first week of November always brings our kick-off to the holidays!
We have been doing this tradition for as long as I can remember!!
I even remember spending the first week of November at my parents house in Illinois back in 2011, and we did this there with them too.
Operation Christmas Child is a WONDERFUL ministry, and so easy to be a part of!
The first Wednesday of November the kiddos (that were home) and I headed to the dollar store to do our shoebox shopping!
We always get a plastic shoebox for every box we want to give and then fill it with gifts for the appropriate age and gender.
We also got a shoebox and gifts for Chad and Blake so they could participate in packing the boxes after dinner that evening!
We all enjoy selecting things for our shoeboxes, but I think Eliza enjoys this the most!!
I had a brilliant idea a couple of years ago to have the cashier check out one shoebox at a time and then put everything from that one shoebox back into the plastic tub.
It makes it much easier to keep track of everyone’s selections!
That evening after dinner we packed up our shoeboxes, made homemade cards for them, and labeled them so they were ready for drop off.
It was very fun!!!
Making a card is our favorite part!!
This year we packed our selections in the boxes that our church had that were specifically from Operation Christmas Child.
I kept the plastic tubs because I needed them for shoe storage!
Note to self – the actual shoeboxes from OCC are much larger than the plastic tubs!
We needed to buy more gifts than we had!
I am thankful that we have holiday traditions that the children count on!!
They spur me on to continue them and they are worth continuing!!
We have many other traditions around the holidays – stay tuned for those!!
I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME!!!
I hope you all do too!!
A group from our church actually went down to the distribution center to volunteer this year. It was so much fun!
I did learn you should not tape the boxes, as they are opened for inspection. If it needs help staying closed they recommend rubber bands.
They also have some filler items if a box needs it, and if a box is too full they will put it in a bigger box.
If you have time/ desire to see that side of it, I highly recommend going. The closest one is near Chicago.
We have some other friends who have done this as well!! So neat to go and see that!
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