We are speechless. We have no words. Completely blown away. But before I get to the reasons why, I’d like to start by saying that we are thankful that James was healthy enough to have a normal Christmas. You see, last Christmas James was just getting over an illness so we decided to stay home. We normally spend Christmas eve at my mom’s and Christmas day at Stacy’s parent’s house. Fortunately, we felt James was stable enough this year to go to my mom’s on Christmas Eve. He got a little Elmo stuffed animal, a hooded towel for bath time, and some clothes.
Christmas Day James was still doing good so we were able to go to Stacy’s folk’s house. James got more clothes, and a big monkey stuffed animal, because that is his baby theme, and because James is our little monkey.
Okay, so now I can get to the part where we completely blown away. Somebody (we don’t know who) had contacted a local non-profit organization called Normal Moments who then contacted us. They explained who they were, what they do, and asked if we would be interested in them collecting gifts for James. Sure. Money is tight with only one of us working and James deserved to have a good Christmas. We gave them a list of things we thought James might like. We even asked for an iPad, not thinking they would get us one.
A couple of days ago I met someone from Normal Moments near where I work to pick up the gifts they had gotten for James. Holy crap there were a lot of gifts! Now, I had known prior to picking up the gifts that Normal Moments had people donate the items that we had asked for. I asked the woman who was there to drop off the gifts if we could get a list of donors so that we could send them each a thank you card, but she said that their donors prefer to remain anonymous. If you are reading this and you donated any of the gifts, or played any part in this, THANK YOU! We don’t know what else to say. Thank you.
Okay, so here is James surrounded by the gifts I brought home (before we opened them):
And here he is surrounded by the gifts after we opened all of them:
He got clothes, and stuffed animals, and toys, and musical instruments. Somebody even bought him the iPad we asked for. We know some of you have given us money to put towards an iPad so we will be contacting you to see if you want us to return your money or if you want us to keep it in James’ medical fund to put toward something else he may need in the future.
Like I said earlier, we are completely blown away. Thank you Normal Moments, and anyone who played a part in giving James an awesome Christmas. Someday we hope to return the favor. If you are in the Chicagoland area and would like to find out more about Normal Moments, or become a donor yourself, here is a link to their website:
Although you can view it on their website, I also want to include a YouTube video about how Normal Moments got started:
