Plan With Me: Christmas in a Shoe Box

Every year for the past eight years or so, my mom & I have packed a christmas parcel for a child we don't know and probably will never meet. 

Why is that?

There's a campaign called "Weihnachten im Schuhkarton" ("Christmas in a Shoe Box") in the German version, their international name is "Operation Christmas Child". People in industrialized countries pack Christmas boxes that are transported to children in need in not-so-rich-countries by volunteers. The German parcels usually go to kids in Eastern Europe. You pack your box, wrap it in christmas wrapping paper and bring it to one of the local collection points, and from there, Operation Christmas Child takes over and organizes the rest.

So what do you include in those boxes? For example small toys, school supplies, clothing or toiletries. And of course - chocolate!

Just to give you a few figures: This year, there are about 5.000 collection points in Germany alone, and in 2014, Germans packed about 512.000 boxes. This has become really huge!

For my mom and me, packing the parcel has become kind of the starting signal for the holiday season. It doesn't mean that we start decorating our houses immediately, but it's the beginning of allowing ourselves to get into a bit of christmas mood... and it's something we do together. We share the "work", if you can call it work at all. 

I have a page in my Filofax for "Weihnachten im Schuhkarton". I decided to make a new one this year and plan to use it for the next few years as well. Here's what it looks like:

As you can see: I didn't want to overdecorate it to keep it functional. This year we packed a box for a girl aged between 5 and 9, and my mom did the fiddly task of glueing the christmas wrapping paper to the box. Next year, we'll take turns and I'll decorate a box for a boy. This page will help me to remind myself...