
I'd first heard about Operation Christmas Child about 15 years ago. Maybe it was my love of Christmas, or maybe it was my penchant for picking up little items all of the time, but it sounded like something I wanted to do. Something that I should do. And I thought that I would.
But between working as many hours as I could and finishing up my last classes in my program, I wasn't able to get the box pulled together.
The cycle of hearing about it and missing the deadline was one that would repeat itself a few times until, eventually, the project fell off my radar entirely. So, when coworkers returned from lunch one day in late October with red and green shoe boxes it seemed divinely designed.
"Hey, where did you get that?"
"They were giving them out at Chick-fil-a."
"Hmm, I just might stop by after work to get one."
"Really I just took one because they were handing them out. If you bring them back, the restaurant will give you a free sandwich. I don't think I'm going to do it, though. Spending $20 to get a free sandwich. Not worth it to me. You can have mine."
And so it began.
The box lived on the dining room table for a month. I had some things around the house to put in, but I wanted to add a little more. Time was ticking away.
It was the last collection day. I hadn't picked up the last few items I wanted for the box and the very convenient restaurant near the office was not listed as an official collection site. Yikes!
But I was determined to finish this time. In a last minute push, I decided to leave the office early, run to the store for the last few things and drop it off near home. Even in the end, the hurdles did not fall away -- rain combined with rush hour traffic meant all of the 'extra' time was spent sitting in traffic, and I dashed through the store just 45 minutes before the site was scheduled to close.
I pulled up at home about 20 minutes before closing to quickly arrange everything so it would fit, fired off a few shots, and dashed back out. By now, arriving before 8 was futile, but I was hopeful that someone would be at the site a little late.
And there was someone there.
Finally, success in completing this project. And know what, I am looking forward to doing this many more years to come.
Happy December!