The gift of giving

I think I’ve mentioned this before but every year at work I organise something called the Christmas Giving Tree. It’s a huge Christmas tree covered in parcel tags – each tag has a gift idea on it from chocolates to towels and biscuits to coffee. People come along, pick a tag and buy the gift on it. Then they wrap it, put on the tag and bring it back to the collection point. The wonderful WRVS collect the presents from us and then distribute them as part of their Meals on Wheels service.

The tree has been going for ten years (I’ve been doing it for three) and it’s a lot of work but so worth it when the grand total comes through – 536 gifts collected this year!
I was away for a few days during the collection period and I had such a happy shock when I walked into the room where we keep the presents to find them not only in the box we keep them in but all over the surrounding chairs and tables – it was a definite lump-in-the-throat moment.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about it and maybe it’ll inspire you to do something similar next year – even if you just buy a single present for a neighbour it’ll bring a smile to their face. I’m so happy to have played my part in perhaps bringing a smile to 536 people this Christmas.


Me handing over some presents to the WRVS in front of the tree