And Then The Christmas Spirit Found Me

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It all had happened so quickly but after the whirlwind of feelings passed, I finally felt serenity inside me. Interesting how it works. It’s so often the unexpected that forces us to slow down? It’s like we have to take a step back, so we can move forward again.

I didn’t feel like mingling and took time off from blogging, I even skipped my yearly Christmas post. I wanted to hold on to my inner harmony, away from offline and online reality. Very selfishly I decided it was time for stillness.

I need these moments to rethink my purpose. I needed the time to find a way to embrace whatever will come my way in the upcoming New Year.

To be honest, I didn’t feel very Christmassy this year. Come to think of it, I haven’t felt very Christmassy the last few years. It’s all too commercialist, too hectic, too expensive and too superficial. On top of it, we get traumatized by negativity on almost every news channel, which is neither helpful nor healthy.

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Of course, I got the house ready. I baked cookies, made fudge, and filled the fridge and freezer with way too much food. I even had a sugar meltdown and one afternoon I ate myself into a butterscotch-fudge frenzy, but I shook it off the next day.

And then…

On the 20th of December, pretty much last minute, we decided we wanted to help a family in need but didn’t know where to start. We had joined Nextdoor (a neighborhood board) a while back but weren’t active. I wrote a post and asked neighbors if they knew a family that could use some help. The response was overwhelming but sadly all answers came from people who had a very long list of wishes for themself. They asked for money, for Venmo transfers or cash transfers, some even had an Amazon wishlist full of things you don’t need to celebrate Christmas or to survive. It was disgusting and surely not what we hoped for.

Not knowing what to do, I called a nearby nursing home, because I thought maybe there was a senior who wouldn’t get a visitor for Christmas, who could use some cheer. The administrator and the activity director were a bit speechless when I called but promised to call me back the next day, and they did.

They had five seniors in their home who didn’t have anybody. All of them had the same wishes, and they all needed the same:

Shampoo and body wash, a wall calendar, tissues, some candy, some chips, sodas, and maybe a hat, gloves, and socks.

The simplicity of their wishes shocked me. After all the greed, there it was — a list full of essentials, and so we went shopping. We got a Sam’s* card that day (I wanted one for a long time) and we loaded up. However, even buying in bulk, it quickly added up to buy for 5 people, and it went a bit over the budget we had in mind.

And so I went back to Nextdoor and asked my neighbors if anyone had a wall calendar they knew they wouldn’t use, or perhaps they could donate new socks or gloves, stuff so many of us have stashed away in our dressers.

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I got two wall calendars. We packed gift bags for the seniors, wrote cards but kept our names out of them, and filled the bags up with sodas, chips, Christmas cookies, shampoos, conditioners, body wash, pringles, candy bars, tissues, and a bit more. I separated the candy bars, the chocolates, and the cookie sleeves. All the things so many of us eat by the pound during the Holidays.

My husband delivered the bags to the nursing home, in the afternoon on the 24th of December. I knew he had some last-minute shopping to do – like every year – so I stayed home. I felt exhausted and overwhelmed.

We hadn’t been able to deliver it all before Christmas in that short amount of time. We still needed socks, scarves, hats, fresh fruits, more calendars. We were hoping to get five more bags ready for New Year’s.

30 minutes after my husband had left, there was a knock on the door. An older lady introduced herself. She had remembered our address when she read my post on Nextdoor because during COVID I had sewn and donated facemasks in our neighborhood. She asked to come to it and I didn’t see any harm in it. We sat down and she handed me a beautiful wall calendar. She wanted to know what else the seniors needed and I went through the list of the things we still hoped to buy: Socks, hats, gloves, maybe a scarf for each one, fresh fruits.

Then, without and warning, she handed me an envelope with $200 cash. I told her that it made me feel uncomfortable because I didn’t know how to prove that we would use the money on the seniors. Taking cash felt wrong. She opened her purse, took out a notepad, and wrote down her number, email, name, and address. “You can send me pictures, but you don’t have to.”

Then she left. (We will be in touch).

She left me humble and speechless. I sat at our table alone for a long time. When my husband came back home, he joined me. Of course, we remember the time when we didn’t have anything, we remember it every year. How could we not? Like most of us, we also think about all the people we miss and we smile at the ghosts of Christmas pasts.

We are so fortunate! We have too much!

Now we know there are five seniors close to us, who don’t have enough money for an orange or a candy bar out of the vending machine.

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It was an eye-opening experience. I found my Christmas spirit and so much more.

I debated if I should write about it and I hope it doesn’t come across as bragging because that is not the intention. I know many of us give and we volunteer and help throughout the year. It just never occurred to me that so many seniors use all their Social Security (pension) to cover the cost of a nursing home/assisted living facility and they have nothing left for simple wishes like a candy bar.

I got what I needed the most!

I hope you all had a wonderful Holidays!

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*Sam’s Club is a membership warehouse club