Happy Holidays, and Merry Christmas, dear readers!  At this time of year, it is customary to count our blessings and to share with others.  Giving gifts to dear friends and family, and to those less fortunate is one of the ways that I like to find the joy in the season.  Small tokens of affection to family and friends is fun, but the true depth of Christmas magic comes from doing something for someone who really needs it.  It may be someone you know well who is going through a rough patch, or someone you’ve never met.  It may be a carefully chosen gift wrapped in holiday paper with ribbons and bows, or it may be the gift of time spent sharing a meal.  It might be a loaf of holiday bread or a small poinsettia taken to a neighbor who is lonely along with an afternoon of listening and visiting.

In the spirit of giving, the Safelight Project continued for the holiday season with the idea of doing some cards for the 20 residents of the domestic violence shelter.  For the holidays, I thought it would be nice to once again do something to boost the spirits of those brave souls enduring a hardship this holiday season.  So, I sent out a request for cards, along with showing some of mine, HERE.  These wonderful handmade cards were sent by Lenora, thank you so much!  She sent 24 cards with all different designs!!

Simple yet so festive, using snowmen elements.

So cute, her designs were adorable.

All the envelopes were decorated with a Joy stamp and some stickers.

You can see how she started a theme and just kept going.  Lovely!

Inside, the cards had wonderful sentiments. This one was my favorite.

Cards with inspirational messages arrived in the mail from Mary (Stitching Grandma) and the Queen Bee Quilters who had a card making day.  Read about their fun day HERE.

A dozen handmade cards were made with wonderful messages inside.

They also had special envelopes for each one.

Between the ones I made and the cards received, I only needed to make four more for every bag to have the same number. So I pulled out some store bought cards, added a stamped message and a note inside.

I added stickers to the envelopes on these last four too.

My original idea was to tie a ribbon around two cards, and have packets for each resident. But with the number of cards received, I decided to expand the gift just a little. I found some small gift bags at the dollar store, and got them along with some fun tissue. I added a chocolate reindeer and a candy cane to the bags along with the cards.

Then, I thought, that was nice, but a bit more would be better.  So, back to the store for hand lotion and lip balm, something everyone can use.  Every resident was able to receive a gift bag with candy, hand lotion, lip balm, and three cards each!

When I was done, there were 21 bags for delivery to the shelter.

So I emailed Laresa and asked if she wanted to have lunch at Dandelion Cafe, the shelter training restaurant. We met for lunch and I delivered the bags for handing out that night. Of course, you probably can guess what I decided to eat.

Yes, I got one of the last slices of tomato pie before they stop making it for the winter.  The shelter residents got their gift bags on Thursday evening to kick off a nice weekend of holiday activities planned for the kids.  They were much appreciated.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, joyous Holiday times, laughter and love every day.