The princess and the elves (a long one)

 A friend of mine from my physical therapy/pilates class runs a really neat volunteer program at Christmas time.  She works with a local homeless shelter to arrange for Santa to bring gifts for all of the children who find themselves in the unfortunate position of being there over Christmas.

The super cool thing about it is that the parent fills out a form that says what the kid's favorite colors are, stuff they like to do, clothing sizes, things they really need, and things they really want for Christmas.  My friend hooks up each kid with someone like me who goes out shopping for them.  We then all meet at her house (tonight) for a wrapping party.  The gifts are photographed before being wrapped, and the photo with the gift receipts are then given to the kid's parent ahead of time (so he/she knows what the kid is getting from "santa" and can exchange them later if necessary).

A big stocking for each kid, filled with wrapped presents and topped off with a snuggly blanket (that we made over the fall at little get-togethers, one of which I wrote about back in early October), is delivered surreptitiously so that the parents can give them to the kids on Christmas morning.  The kids never know that volunteers provided them with Christmas, and their parents get to keep face in front of their kids by it seeming like the parent/s made Christmas happen for them.

I really like the way this program works and have so much fun thinking about the little kid I get to shop for.  Every year my friend gives me a little girl, as I have a soft-spot for 'em (in a non-sick way... you know what I mean!).  This year I am an elf for a 5 year old who LOVES the new Disney princess Tiana...

I found a totally cute costume so she can dress up like her, gloves and all.  I even found little panties with Princess Tiana on them!  I got everything at Target so it's easy for her dad to exchange stuff, but since Target wasn't selling Tiana dolls all by themselves, I got her the entire princess collection.  The cool thing about it is that Tiana is the star of the box collection, so it's like this little girl will get her favorite princess, Tiana, and all of Tiana's side-kick princesses.

I love being able to use the "elf" activity as a happy place over the holidays, imagining that maybe this one little girl will squeal with a little bit of delight on Christmas morning during a really, really hard time of her family's life.  

I'll have to figure out how little M and I can do this together once she's here to help me.  But it'll be a challenge not to blow the Santa thing for her in the process though!  I'll have to work up a good story.

I hope all of you have a peaceful holiday.  I'm not sure if you all celebrate Christmas or other holidays, but this seems to be a reflective time of year for most all of us in the western world.  And it's a particularly hard time for those of us who are working so hard to carve out a little piece of family for ourselves. 

Whenever you need a "happy place" please let your mind go to Tiana and princesses in general, and imagine that all of us IF princesses are together in a snowy wonderland laughing and talking and meeting in princess-form to share our love and compassion for each other.  You can even wear a tiara and super cool dress in the happy snowy wonderland place.  Mine will look like Tiana's, as I love green...