Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The Angel Tree Christmas Story

Every Christmas I share this story and I thought I would post it a little earlier than Christmas day this year. This story actually reminded me of what a good heart my child had when she was going through some difficult times and gave me hope that God would lead her back to her good heart. I am proud to say she made it through her dark years and now is in possession of this giving heart once again. 


THE ANGEL TREE CHRISTMAS STORY


When my daughter turned 8 years old she had gotten birthday money from relatives,  probably a total of about $40. We went to Wal-Mart so she could spend her birthday money. I had decided we would go to McDonalds to get a bite to eat first. There was an Angel Tree in front of the McDonalds there in Walmart.

My daughter asked what it was and I explained to her that it was for children whose parents couldn't afford to buy them Christmas gifts. I told her let's go eat and she continued to look at the names on the tree.

She grabbed my hand and said "Mom look, this little girl only wants some clothes and a barbie doll". I think she thought it impossible that a child would want mostly clothes.

I looked and noticed the only toy on there was a Barbie, I think the child's age was about 5.

My daughter looked up at me with pleading eyes and said "Moma would it be okay if I spent my birthday money on this angel?"

I couldn't speak as a piercing warmth shot through my heart. I was fighting tears, as I am now remembering this moment. My daughter looked at me and said "I won't Moma if you are gonna be upset". I told her "hang on a minute" while I continued to fight back the tears and choked to find the words I wanted to say. I knew I would just bust out crying if I said much more. After a few moments and a couple of deep breaths I composed myself I told her "baby if you want to spend your birthday money on this little angel then I will match you dollar for dollar".

We went to eat and my daughter kept looking over the list of items from the angel she had pulled off the tree. After we got done she was so excited to go and buy for this little girl. I did as I promised and  matched dollar for dollar, plus another $20 because daughter thought the little girl needed some things to go with her barbie doll that she picked out for the little girl. My daughter even said "you don't have to buy me anymore gifts Mom, just spend it on her. Santa will bring me stuff anyway".

We got the shopping done and took it to Customer Service where my daughter informed the lady to "make sure it is wrapped pretty". My daughter spent every last dime of her birthday money that day on someone else.

I can honestly say that on that day I had never been more proud of my child and still am to this day for her unselfish act of giving up her birthday money to make sure some little girl got her Christmas wishes.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Cricut Explore One Winner!!!

It's time! It's time! It's time to announce the winner of the Cricut Explore One!!

Giveaways can sometimes be a bit time consuming when there are a large amount of entries. I had said any duplicate entries would be deleted and there were quite a few duplicates. One person even went in and entered like 3 or 4 times with different names but I knew because the picture was the same woman on the entries, needless to say those got deleted. I also had to go through and delete any "anonymous" comments because there would be no way to find the person that made the post.

I had shared a link to the post with several Facebook groups and said to click the link, which of course would go directly to the post of the giveaway, and leave a comment in the comment section. Evidently that wasn't quite clear enough because people left their comment of what they would make if they won in the Facebook post.

At this point I'm not quite sure how to word things to make it easier for people to enter a giveaway and I guess at this point it doesn't matter on this giveaway now does it! *okie cracks up laughing*

So anyway after spending all that time weeding out duplicate entries and the ones where I wouldn't be able to get a hold of the winner I ended up with 481 valid entries. I went to Random.org and used the number generator and the winning number was....

Yeah 3!! After all that the number it picked was 3!!!  I was totally like "WTH???"

I literally spent a few hours going through all the comments only to have the dang number generator pick number 3! I could have just saved all that time and not went through all the comments, but then again it probably would have been a different number.






Oh and the person who made the 3rd comment was...


CONGRATS TO THE WINNER! Please contact me with your information so your machine can be shipped to you!!