Thank you for this post Kat. We have been thinking about Christmas already as well. But a bit differently than you, but the same. Heheh. Every year there are wish lists given around here, wants, desires, etc. Oh, we always get someone less fortunate than us and make sure they have a good Christmas, but this year we are seeing a need for change. This was brought on by our own very odd, hard and life changing year. After having our second son, realizing from day one something wasn’t right, moving towards diagnosing his issues (which is only partly done after 9 long, grueling months), realizing our first son has a host of issues himself (Autism, speech delays, serious physical development delays, sensory processing disorder, etc), and going through this long year, we see need in our own lives. And, it’s time again for people to ask what we want for Christmas. WANT? Oh, honey, you don’t want to ask me that this year. How about “what do you need”? I ask for what I need and am told this is the time of year to get fun things. Honey, I am trying my hardest to make my sweet husband’s paycheck stretch to the end of the month due to excrutiating medical bills, I can’t care about a vase to put on my table. How about a donation to a bank account for the $1000 leg braces my oldest son needs. How about a donation to our rehabilitation center in either of my children’s names to help cover the overload of uninsured (because insurance loves the word “deny”) therapies we are trying to cover. How about a certificate to watch my children for a few hours so I can take a nap?

My thought is, let’s start asking about what others need. Some of us have serious and dire needs and we can’t meet them. We don’t care about a fabulous new scarf, killer heels or the latest DVD. We are in fear of not being able to pay the mortgage because we have so many medical bills but, somehow, make too much money for any assistance.

We give to charities, which is awesome and every single person that reads your blog should run out and find one that hits their passions to help. I think finding our passion and then finding a charity that matches it will make it personal and give us a deep drive to help them. But what are we doing for our neighbor? Our sister? Our father?

I was going to give this for Jimmy’s present also- but Iwanted to the one that was on your blog.

Love that video. Those numbers are sobering.

I found Advent Conspiracy last year on facebook, and unjoined the group after Christmas. Time to join again; to maybe never unjoin again.

I emailed a link to this post to a bunch of people.  This message really needs to spread…