Somewhere in Illinois:

I heard about the Christmas Jars book last year. I bought and read the book. After wiping the tears away, I sat my family of four (including my 13 yr old daughter, and 12 yr old son) down and read the book aloud. We decided when we finished the book to start our own christmas jar. For the whole year we have been collecting and depositing our change and dollar bills into the jar. My husband was deployed this summer and would send change back in care packages to be added to the jar. My son even started putting his allowance into it. As the year continued, we started to look for someone to give the jar to. Then in October we heard about a family who’s 4 year old son was diagnosed with cancer. As I watched this amazing family go through the difficulties and hospital visits, I talked to my family about the christmas jar. We all agreed that this was who we wanted to give the jar to.

Today we delivered the jar. We were so excited. We scoped out the scene and the kids walked in the dark to the house with a bag containing our Christmas Jar and a copy of the book. The kids rang the bell and RAN! I sat in the car waiting. As the kids ran to me, a neighbor yelled at the kids! I had to chuckle because he had no idea what we were up to! My heart is so filled right now and even though my family is having to deal with the deployment of my husband and he can’t be with us for Christmas, our little jar has made it’s journey and will hopefully make another family happy. Thank you for this book, and for giving our family a great way to celebrate the season. We have our 2011 Christmas Jar already in place and will begin to fill it tomorrow!