Learning Life Lessons, sometimes happen by surprise.

Each year my husband and I try at Christmas to give back somehow, someway more than we usually do throughout the year. In years past we have picked friends of friends who we knew where struggling, bought toys for toy drives, adopted a tree angel, gave to food drives, etc. But this year we let time slip up on us until it was Christmas Eve and we had to make a decision right away. Feeling a little frazzled by our last minute decision making, we decided just to put a larger than usual amount of money in a Salvation Army bucket anonymously, no tax credit, just giving to be giving. But to our surprise, Salvation Army does not “ring” on Christmas Eve, or at least they don’t in our town. So we were left yet again to decide what to do.
We decided to walk among the Christmas Eve shoppers and just pick out 3 different people to help. Walking around looking at shoppers, wanting to help someone who we really thought could used what little help we could offer turned out to be and adventure. We started out in our local Mall, but then decided that maybe we should try Wal-Mart, so we left the Mall and headed that direction. We had walked almost the entire store before we walked past an older man who seemed to be going through a cart of trash. After we passed by him I turned around and went back to where he was standing. He was dressed in many layers, was unkempt, and quite a bit older probably in his 60’s or older. I asked him…’excuse me do you work here?’ Once I spoke to him he looked up from his endeavor and smiled saying “no, I’m sorry I don’t work here.” I then told him, ‘well then, I want to give you something. Merry Christmas!’ and I handed him a fifty dollar bill. He looked down at my hand, and immediately back up at me and said, “Thank you!” and took the money. I turn away back toward my husband and we began to walk down the aisle as the man spoke out...”God Bless you!” And our first Christmas Eve gift had been given definitely to someone in need.
Onward we go and my husband suggest that we go to the local Goodwill store and find someone buying toys to help out. When we arrive the store was all but abandoned (this was Christmas Eve afternoon) with only just a very few shoppers. We head back to the toy area and there was no one there. Feeling yet again distraught we made our way back toward the front of the store when we see a fairly young man with two little girls sitting in his cart. I point them out to my husband and he immediately moves toward them. My husband speaks to the man in a friendly way and then asked how old his children are, the man replies that they are 7 & 5. My husband says to the man; “I would like to give you a gift.” then handed him a fifty dollar bill. The man looks perplexed, but grateful, accepting our small gift.
Again we felt good about helping someone but we still had one gift left to give. We had an extra $50.00 Wal-Mart gift card we had bought. We buy several every year to give out to some of our family members. It was getting late on Christmas Eve and we were running out of ideas. As we began to drive back toward our home we saw a lady standing at a bus stop all alone, I thought she was the perfect candidate. I know she can use this gift card so I pull over to the side of the road. We try to offer it to her, but she just shakes her head repeatedly NO, and will not look us in the eye, so we drive away. WOW, I could not believe it. Had I embarrassed her, insulted her, did she not understand, was she deaf, or mentally challenged, or just frightened of us? Either way it sure made me feel bad, and all along I thought doing this would make me feel GOOD. So onward we go, and we are just about to give up when we see one of our favorite vacation places…Waffle House! Now in my opinion, no one works harder when busy than a waitress at Waffle House, so we decided to stop in there to have a cup of coffee and leave the gift card as a tip. But as we pull into the parking lot there is a waitress (a young woman) standing out back by the dumpster having a smoke break and frantically typing on her cell phone. We decide to just give our last Christmas gift to her as she stood outside of Waffle House on Christmas Eve.
All in all, I am very glad that my husband and I had this experience. The experience itself was mixed with different emotions. I believe that whatever anyone can do to help someone else is always a good thing. We ended up feeling good overall, but also with a greater understanding for charities and what they do every day, without prejudice. I am fairly certain that next year, we will certainly give to one of those fine organizations and do so early in the season! A lesson learned the hard way for me, yet again.