Crazy For The Box

I can't remember when we first started packing shoeboxes full of small Christmas gifts to be delivered to needy children around the world by Operation Christmas Child.  I know in the beginning each of our three children packed one box.  Each year we would go out shopping, pick up gifts, pack them in a shoebox and take them to the local Christian bookstore during collection week.  A few years ago we decided to forgo a gift exchange between my children and their cousins choosing instead to hold a packing party for filling shoeboxes.  It has become a wonderful tradition.  Each family brings an assortment of hygiene supplies and small gifts to share. We lay them all out on a table and each child packs one box and their parents cover the shipping cost for the boxes their children pack.  So instead of one more gift among many for our children, there was now a gift to be sent to a child who may have never before received a Christmas gift or any gift for that matter.  We had done this for several years.  Then for some reason, at the beginning of 2011 I felt a great urgency to provide as many boxes as I could for Operation Christmas Child to deliver.  I knew with each box would come the message of God's love to children living in situations I could never really imagine.  Anyway, that is when I went "Crazy For The Box".  I made a goal of sending 100 boxes in 2011 and by the time we were finished with the cousins packing party, donations from the Christian fellowship group at my children's shool  and my brother and sister in law's Sunday school class we were able to pack and send 158!  I have set a new goal for this year but haven't told anyone lest they think I am really CRAZY!  Throughout the year I plan to post pictures of the neat items I find for the boxes and hope you get great ideas for packing your own boxes.