Our local Home Hardware Store was working with a community program and three senior centers to make sure that all the senior got a “extra” Christmas gift.

The idea was simple, you picked a tag off the tree, looked at the list, picked a name which had a present including sizes and so forth next to it.  There were few rules, try and stay at 25 dollars or below (total fail on our part, but I will get to that later) Must be brand new and still in orgainal  packaging, in a gift bag with easily removed tissue only and no personal information given.

I noticed that a lot of the ladies had been picked up but as many of the elder gentleman, so I asked to confirm if what I was seeing was right and they said yes.. So we picked a Elder Gentleman who asked for a new quilt in Twin size for his bed.

Now I had the thought the day we did this, that I would just pop over to the Giant Tiger store, buy the blanket and gift bag and take it right back.. hah, first off while you could get all kinds of double, queen and a huge selection of king, there was only two twins and both were as pretty flower girly as they come.

So we ended up looking in the city and ended up paying 40 for the twin set with pillow cases, I could not find anything cheaper. Then I had hoped to be able to use on of my church basement gift bags but alas.. none of them were big enough..

I have to admit that I had time finding one big enough but we finally got it done, and got it to the store on time, the ladies asked if we had shopped online or in a store. We said in a store but I got to thinking, that online would have been the way to get the quilt for the price quote given, then I got thinking more.. maybe they were trying to keep track of how much local town sales had happened vs how many folks ordered online.

Part of me wishes that I could have gotten really good quality blankets from the church basement and washed them up and wrapped them nicely, I certainly could have done more people for the same costs..

However today, there are no gently used toys or cloths allowed in drives anymore. everything must be new with many asking for tags still on them.  Same with wrapping, no longer allowed, they must be able to check the present to make sure it all good.

I hope he likes his new dark blue/light blue/cream squared quilt set and I wish him the best this season. Are you working with any community drive this Christmas? Are you doing anything for the elders?