What I want for Christmas

I love Christmas. I love everything about it. As a child, I remember my parents (who worked nights) would be at home on Christmas Day so my brother and I would have a great time, causing mayhem, opening presents and eating lots of yummy food and chocolate.

Now, several years later and having my own little family, I love it even more! The house gets decorated with my four year old girl whilst my little boy just sits staring in wonderment at all the colours and sparkly bits. We visit family, they visit us and the holidays fly by in a haze of colourful wrapping paper and the aroma of mince pies and hot apple and cinnamon drinks to keep the cold out.

It is generally at this time of year that I consider again, how lucky we are and how grateful I am to the powers that be, that my husband and I can give our children a modest and simple Christmas but with all the trimmings that are within our reach. It is also at this time, where I do realise as well that there are many others out there who don’t get to celebrate this time of year as they simply cannot afford it.

Adults generally may be able to accept this as a fact of life but if they have children, the equation then becomes more difficult. After all, Christmas is about the children. It is about giving them all the sparkle and glitter and seeing their eyes light up when opening presents no matter how big or small. Even seeing the delights of Christmas dinner puts big smiles on their faces. I am always mindful of this and so have always tried to help by donating some money to a worthwhile cause to help people out at this time. When I found that I could actually do more, I jumped on the chance. Let me take you back to October 2009 where I first joined the social network, Twitter and got involved with Project 65 – The Veteran’s Charity.

Being a mother of two, I joined Twitter to speak to other mothers and also wanted to see what the fuss was about. I very quickly met some very inspirational people. One of whom was Danny Greeno, C.E.O. and co-founder of Project 65. Here I found a man who was extremely dedicated to his cause and his passion to help out injured service personnel and ex forces families inspired me to want to raise money for this extremely worthwhile charity.

Initially, I just wanted to raise some money for the Charity but very quickly it became a Christmas project where the money raised would go to giving an ex forces family that had very little by way of money, a food hamper for Christmas day.

One of our happy families last year.

I told all my *friends* on twitter about the coffee morning and fundraising and received donations that way too. Even my friend’s seven year old boy donated twenty pence from his piggy bank to my cause. Everyone was extremely generous and once the coffee morning was over, it transpired that we had raised £250 so after much deliberation it was decided that we could help two families instead of one!

Once the contact details were given to Project 65 by the Royal British Legion, Danny set about finding out about them. Both were ex army single mothers with sons and both were working hard to improve their quality of life after having to leave the Army. My heart broke when I found that one mother had planned on pizza for Christmas dinner because that is all she could afford to save up for after buying her son a small star wars present.

My efforts were given another boost by a local farm shop nearby in Cheshire who through another twitter friend donated two large organic vegetable boxes and gave me boxes and cellophane to wrap the hampers with. Armed with the money, I went to the supermarket and shopping carefully, I bought the works and created Christmas hampers. There was even money left over to put the icing on the cake – presents for the boys and gift vouchers for the ladies.

The day that I delivered one of the hampers to the family that lives close by to me was indeed an emotional one. Spending time with them whilst watching them open the hampers with such dignity and grace and seeing their eyes light up with happiness was one of the best days I have ever had in my entire life. I felt great pleasure at knowing such amazing people who donated and I have never cried so much as I did with the very kind comments I received from these ladies whether in person or over the phone. To hear one of them remark that she hadn’t bought anything pretty for herself in years and then to break down and cry has strengthened my resolve to make Christmas 2010 the best Christmas for some more ex forces families.

If you think you would like to help me and Project 65 this year make Christmas special, please don’t hesitate to send me an email at leila@project65.net or simply donate at http://www.justgiving.com/xmashampers  THANKYOU!

 I know I am going to have a lovely Christmas day with my family. What I want for Christmas is to know that even if it’s just for one day, that with YOUR help, we have made it lovely for some people who thoroughly deserve it.

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