As a family, we make a number of charitable contributions this time of year. Flora’s school had a Toys for Tots drive, and I had the girls pick out a new toy when we were shopping to donate to that.
One of the other things I did was donate gently used toys to a charity called Play It Forward Pittsburgh (this link goes to the Facebook page). One Friday, before I dropped Kate off, we stopped at the house in my neighborhood that was collecting the donations.
When I got back in the car, Kate said, “Why are you giving our toys to this house?”
I said, “They are collecting used toys to give to kids who won’t get toys at Christmas.”
“Why doesn’t Santa give them toys?” Kate asked. “Because they are bad?”
Oh, shite.
“Nooo,” I said, trying to think fast. “Sometimes Santa needs help getting more toys to give to more children. If kids have a lot of toys that they don’t play with, Santa likes us to give them to him, so he can give them to children he knows don’t have lots of toys. He knows the toys will get played with that way.”
This explanation, brought to you by the seat of my pants, seemed to satisfy Kate quite well.
I just wish I had dropped her off first, *then* donated the toys. It’d would’ve made my morning a little less stressful.
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Speaking of donating toys, check out what readers of burghbaby.com helped Michelle do this year. Wow, is all I have to say.
Red Pen Mama 