Gratitude in Crisis

My husband and I are in a financial crisis, and we will be for the next five months as we pay for the pest control to get rid of the bedbugs in our apartment.

We've been going to food pantries for the last few weeks, and when we went to one in our city two weeks ago, they told us we could pick up Christmas baskets on the 16th and 17th. They said we could get turkeys and all the fixings.

Until that point, I had no hope of a nice Christmas for us. There's one gift under the tree, the one I made for my husband back in September. We can't afford presents, and Christmas money we recieve will be going toward our needs, not fun things.

We went to pick up a basket on the 17th, last Saturday, and we were given a turkey, stuffing, potatoes, carrots, an onion, celery, collard greens, canned green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and cranberry sauce. With all that, I can make us a very nice dinner with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce. I plan to make homemade rolls in the bread machine, which my husband specifically requested. We had a little money we could spend on Christmas goodies, so we got the fixings needed for me to make fudge and my mom's Christmas wreaths. We've been munching on those for the past few days.

So, for all of our Christmas meal and goodies we spent a total of $30 USD. Not bad. Especially since we couldn't afford to spend much of anything on it. Without that basket, we wouldn't be having a nice Christmas dinner.

Tomorrow, I will be cooking a turkey for the first time in my life, and I'm very excited.

Thank you to everyone who donates to food banks so people like me can have nice holidays even when we can't afford them. Before we found out about the Christmas baskets, I had no hope of a nice Christmas, but now I'm looking forward to tomorrow. As my mom would say, it's a beautiful thing.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and to all others, I wish you joy on any holiday you may celebrate during the festive season!

Photo Credit: Travel Photographer