Operation Christmas Child

This year we decided to participate in Operation Christmas Child through Kyler's school as well as through our church. I have wanted to do this for a couple years now, but always thought about it too late and missed the deadline. :( So this year, when I had a couple opportunities to do it, I made sure it happened! If you haven't heard of Operation Christmas Child, please check out their website and consider participating next year. It is a simple and easy way to impact the lives of children around the world! Just go to Samaritan's Purse website and learn more about it: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/

I took the kids shopping with me to have them help pick out things to put in the box for the kids in other countries. We were shopping for three boxes. We did one for Kyler for school, and each of the boys did one to give through church. So we picked out enough toys and small gift items for all the boxes and went home to pack them all up.

Here is Kyler with the box he took to school.

Here are both the boys with their boxes we took to church. 

This is such a great way to help your children learn the true meaning of Christmas and help others. Something as simple as us going shopping together and packing the boxes together was such a great teaching opportunity. Every year we do something to help the kids understand what it means to give to others. In the past we have taken names off “Angel” trees and bought gifts for kids in need. This is just a different take on that idea. The kids and I all had a great time doing this and will do it again next year. We will probably do more boxes next time.