Source: Reddit
I absolutely love doing adopt-a-families during Christmas. I don’t have kids of my own but I really put a lot of thought into what to get them. These are low income families, and I always ask for ones with lots of little kids, so I try to pick things that they can get a lot of use out of. I always get loads of books, especially ones where the parents can interact with the kids, cookbooks, puzzles, bedtime stories. I go heavy on science books & kits too, especially for girls. Always gotta get a hula hoop, one of those huge lifesize dollhouse/castles you can color, and a ton of some sort of age appropriate building blocks or legos. I get piles of art stuff and paper, coloring books, painting sets, jewelry kits, all kinds of crafty things. I get them some sort of diary or journal if they’re older, some place secret they can write their thoughts.
My most favorite family of them all was single mom who’d just turned 18. Her son was 3 and she’d moved into her very first apartment. She had nothing but two bare mattresses on the floor, one for her and one for her son. She was working a job and was trying to save up for things for the house. Her wish list was heartbreaking. She wanted blankets for them both, a pan to cook with, and a Spiderman toy for her son. That’s it.
I was single at the time supporting myself so I only had a couple hundred to spend. I got her a complete comforter/sheet set, a pillow, and a full set of cooking pans. I found the coolest thing for her son though, it was a fitted sheet that turned your bed into a Spiderman tent! It was awesome! And then I found a big Spiderman stuffed toy, like 2 feet tall! I also found this huge book with over 100 full length bedtime stories. I got the usual boring stuff, clothes for her son and a gift card for a holiday meal. But then I found at Target a clearance tv/dvd combo, it was less than $100! I knew money was tight so I included a note in her Christmas card that she could rent her son videos from the library for free. I would have given anything to see their faces, I really hope she liked everything. I wish that it made a good Christmas for her and maybe made her first Christmas on her own a little more happy.
