Santa’s Little Helpers {Clearing out the Toys}

Can I just say that we are SO BLESSED?  Not only did we all get some wonderful, thoughtful gifts for Christmas….it was just so wonderful having our family in town to spend the holidays with us.  In light of all the tragedy this holiday season, I think being surrounded by our family and friends really meant  that much more to us this year.  I pray that we will always be so blessed!

We’ve been working hard this winter to encourage Jayna to enjoy the holidays, but also to start raising her awareness of others, and how some are not as fortunate as we are.  And, she is so lucky to have SO many toys.  So when I ran across this idea from Inspired by Family Magazine,  I just had to use it {and share!}.    I tweaked their poem a bit to turn it into a letter from our resident elf, Ralph.

 Click here to download your own copy of the letter (that has blanks for your kids names and your elf’s name).  All you have to do is save it to your computer as a png or jpg file, then go to www.picmonkey.com and open the file.  Click on the “P” on the left hand side of the menu, and scroll down to the “Schoolbell” font. Change it to size 37, and click next to “Dear” to enter your children’s names.  Then, scroll to “Chelsea Market” and change it to size 60 and add your elf’s name next to “Love.”  Then save it to your computer and print it out!So last week, when the girls came downstairs to look for Ralph, they found him sitting on the coffee table with a note and little red sack {tied up with a cute burlap bow!}.Jayna and Millie both immediately took the note to heart, and started cleaning out the playroom.  I was amazed at their generousity….adding beloved stuffed animals and favorite dress up accessories to the sack {with their fair share of Happy Meal toys and seashells!}.  And when we couldn’t fill it anymore, we tied the burlap around it and put it under the tree for Santa to take on Christmas Eve.And when Santa made a last-minute visit to our annual Christmas Eve brunch, he personally thanked the girls, and assured them that he would take the toys and give them to some deserving girls and boys!