T - Seven Days (Giveor Take)

There's about one week standing between us and the point when I need to close up shop on Christmas Crazy. It takes time to make sure all of the packages make it to the right place and Santa needs to get organized and Christmas on a Tuesday is weird and and and and ...

We've got a week to pull this all together.

Right now, we're about $1000 worth of toys behind where I would like to be. And, thus, I present to you 5 reasons you should go jump on that bandwagon.

1. Center for Victims, the organization which gets 100% of what comes into Christmas Crazy, served over 15,000 people in 2016 and 2017 (per the most recent annual report that is available). Of those 15,000 people, 1/3 were kids. Children. Humans under 18 years of age. That's 5,000 kids who have lived through or witnessed or been impacted by an act of violence.

That's too many.

2. While it can seem overwhelming to try to make a difference when there is a lot of hurt in this world, this sort of thing does matter. Somewhere there is a little kid who is hoping for a Barbie or LEGOs for Christmas and you can make that happen without leaving the comfort of your home or office or wherever you happen to be.

3. I know things are tight this time of year. Like, I KNOW. That's another bit of beauty with this project. A $5 Barbie can go to the exact right kid and it can be joined by a $5 stuffed animal and suddenly your $5 doesn't seem so small. I say that as the parent of a child whose biggest wish list item this year is a book. Sometimes it doesn't take much to make this year better.

4. Remember that episode of Friends where Phoebe and Joey keeps arguing about the existence of a selfless good deed? THIS IS ONE. They do exist. You get to put a little good into the world and the only thing you get back is a warm fuzzy feeling because you did something good and ... oh. I guess it's not totally selfless. It's close, though.

5. It's the tenth year we've done this. It would make me immensely happy to have it be at least as big as prior years. It would be weird to go backwards, right?

To recap, if you won't do it for the kids, maybe you'll do it for me. If that doesn't appeal to you, then do it for yourself. All the cool kids are doing it.

Links to do the helping are over here.

LOLOLOLOLSOB

Mila marches to the beat of a drum only she can hear, so mostly we miss out on all of the little kid trends. She just doesn't care that all of her friends are obsessed with Frozen; she's on a Muppet Babies bender. I'm not saying that to brag. If I were, I would mention that I've never seen a single episode of Calliou. Ahem. Instead I mention it because I AM SO ANNOYED WITH THE GIRLS' COUSINS.

They have a lot of cousins. Like, a lot A LOT. We spent Black Friday with a bunch of them, who happen to range in age from 6 to 26 and then some. It was all fun and games and a really good day, except it came with a side effect.

An LOL side effect.

That's an LOL Doll. Up until the point when Mila watched some of her cousins gleefully unwrapped a few on Black Friday, Mila had no idea what they were. I had convinced her that they were just balls when she saw them at Target. But, no, they are EVIL IN A BALL.

For those of you blissfully unaware, LOL Dolls are what would happen if a Product Manager at some toy company were to discover that people have made millions off of unboxing videos on YouTube. Nobody money grabs like toy companies, so it's basically an exaggerated version of unboxing. There are about 7 layers of plastic on that ball and then you get to a plastic enclosure that you have to disassemble. And then you get to the doll and her accessories, but each tiny thing is individually wrapped and packaged. Basically, you spend half a day unboxing all this random plastic crap and are rewarded with a tiny, cheap doll.

And I do mean cheap. Wooooboy.

Before I mention just how cheap, let me just add that Mila finally got an LOL Doll of her own this weekend. After beating me up about it ever since Black Friday, I gave into her whining when I needed some bribery during her photo shoot. I then spent half my life unboxing the dumb thing because Mila couldn't do any of it.

Which is basically the whole purpose. There's nothing great about the dolls. It's the unboxing.

But I did it. Without any joy. And the car will never recover from all of the layers of plastic. If I ever let Mila get another one, I"ll make sure to unwrap the next one while standing in a landfill. That's the only place one should be when dealing with that much garbage.

ANYWAY.

Let's jump to this morning, shall we? This morning the dumb doll was in the car. This morning Mila remembered the doll's dumb cup. This morning Mila kept telling me about how the doll loooooooooves to drink.

"She loves to drink. It's her favorite."

"She drinks a lot!"

"Look at my LOL Doll drinking! She's such a good drinker!"

and my personal favorite

"She's really happy when she drinks!"

IT LOOKS LIKE SHE HAS BEEN DRINKING, NOW DOESN'T IT?

Ahem.

On the topic of LOL Dolls, apparently Mila isn't the only little girl all in. You should help a kid who is receiving services from Center for Victims get one for Christmas this year. Go jump over to the Christmas Crazy gift list and throw a little love into this world.

LOLOLOLOLSOB

Mila marches to the beat of a drum only she can hear, so mostly we miss out on all of the little kid trends. She just doesn't care that all of her friends are obsessed with Frozen; she's on a Muppet Babies bender. I'm not saying that to brag. If I were, I would mention that I've never seen a single episode of Calliou. Ahem. Instead I mention it because I AM SO ANNOYED WITH THE GIRLS' COUSINS.

They have a lot of cousins. Like, a lot A LOT. We spent Black Friday with a bunch of them, who happen to range in age from 6 to 26 and then some. It was all fun and games and a really good day, except it came with a side effect.

An LOL side effect.

That's an LOL Doll. Up until the point when Mila watched some of her cousins gleefully unwrapped a few on Black Friday, Mila had no idea what they were. I had convinced her that they were just balls when she saw them at Target. But, no, they are EVIL IN A BALL.

For those of you blissfully unaware, LOL Dolls are what would happen if a Product Manager at some toy company were to discover that people have made millions off of unboxing videos on YouTube. Nobody money grabs like toy companies, so it's basically an exaggerated version of unboxing. There are about 7 layers of plastic on that ball and then you get to a plastic enclosure that you have to disassemble. And then you get to the doll and her accessories, but each tiny thing is individually wrapped and packaged. Basically, you spend half a day unboxing all this random plastic crap and are rewarded with a tiny, cheap doll.

And I do mean cheap. Wooooboy.

Before I mention just how cheap, let me just add that Mila finally got an LOL Doll of her own this weekend. After beating me up about it ever since Black Friday, I gave into her whining when I needed some bribery during her photo shoot. I then spent half my life unboxing the dumb thing because Mila couldn't do any of it.

Which is basically the whole purpose. There's nothing great about the dolls. It's the unboxing.

But I did it. Without any joy. And the car will never recover from all of the layers of plastic. If I ever let Mila get another one, I"ll make sure to unwrap the next one while standing in a landfill. That's the only place one should be when dealing with that much garbage.

ANYWAY.

Let's jump to this morning, shall we? This morning the dumb doll was in the car. This morning Mila remembered the doll's dumb cup. This morning Mila kept telling me about how the doll loooooooooves to drink.

"She loves to drink. It's her favorite."

"She drinks a lot!"

"Look at my LOL Doll drinking! She's such a good drinker!"

and my personal favorite

"She's really happy when she drinks!"

IT LOOKS LIKE SHE HAS BEEN DRINKING, NOW DOESN'T IT?

Ahem.

On the topic of LOL Dolls, apparently Mila isn't the only little girl all in. You should help a kid who is receiving services from Center for Victims get one for Christmas this year. Go jump over to the Christmas Crazy gift list and throw a little love into this world.