I wish there was a way to fix it all, honestly, but know that y’all are in our prayers. A card from my family will go out in the morning.
Let's Brighten A Little Girls Christmas. We Can Do This. ***PLEASE READ***
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Mine will be out Sarurday or Monday, I live WAY outside of town.
Our stuff is on it's way to your home. I Hope it helps bring her a little peace. Or at least provides a needed distraction or gives her something to look forward to.
Just a little nudge to the top. If anyone like us, is writing some Christmas cards this weekend and would like to send an extra one...
PM sent. Awaiting response. I hope it reaches before Christmas ??
*UPDATE*
Since Tuesday (12/01) I've received twenty one requests for Emma's address. This is fantastic and I'm not at all surprised. This pipe forum is a great group of guys/gals. There's still time to drop a card in the mailbox.
Thank you everyone and Merry Christmas.
Since Tuesday (12/01) I've received twenty one requests for Emma's address. This is fantastic and I'm not at all surprised. This pipe forum is a great group of guys/gals. There's still time to drop a card in the mailbox.
Thank you everyone and Merry Christmas.
I wanted to chime in, as well. We got home yesterday from doing a few things and a box arrived addressed to Emma.
We haven’t opened it, yet, but intend to do so within the next few days.
Thank you all!
We haven’t opened it, yet, but intend to do so within the next few days.
Thank you all!
Good idea, scloyd! This was an imaginative way to reach out with some kindness to a young person at a difficult time.
This is kind of like the Secret Santa thread except you know who the senders are and there are 21 of them!
Still time to get some extra cards sent out guys. Brighten a little girl's day for less than a couple bucks its super easy.
Well, the mailbox was pretty full today! So far a box has showed up, a bubble wrapped package, and probably 5-6 envelopes.
I think we’re going to sit down with her tomorrow night after her little brother goes to bed and let her open them all!
You guys rock!
I think we’re going to sit down with her tomorrow night after her little brother goes to bed and let her open them all!
You guys rock!
It’s exactly like that! Some of them have names, some of them even have the username from on here. But some, the envelopes anyways, just have our address.
That is great to hear! Let us know how it goes ?
One last bump just in case someone missed this.
Thanks everyone.
Thanks everyone.
We had an unannounced visitor last night so we’ve pushed the opening of everything until tonight (please don’t tell the COVID police).
I don’t have a count, but if I stack the envelopes on top of each other, I can’t balance the stack well enough to keep it from falling over. Now that might be unimpressive to most of you, and I get that, but understand I won the silver medal in the 1972 Olympics in Jenga.
Kidding aside, it has been amazing to see all of this stuff show up. Thank you all again, genuinely.
Those were better days.
Details of the opening to follow. Suffice to say this was an excellent evening. She understood the concept, and even at 9 years old, I really think she has learned from the gravity (both ways) of this situation. Couldn’t have done it without you guys. As I’ve already said, any of you who are parents can certainly understand my gratitude. You’ve made an inconceivably difficult situation a little easier, and when my child is involved, that’s invaluable.
Thank you.
So we sat Emma down and started by explaining what was going on. We explained to her that Daddy has friends on a website about smoking pipes, and how Daddy made a thread asking them all to hug their kids and explained to them what happened. We told Emma that, obviously, the group of folks who read about it were mortified. We explained that completely unprovoked, they banded together to show her an outpouring of love and support during such a tragic time and wanted to make sure she knew that there are far more/greater (@mso489 & @cshubhra gimme a hand here on the more vs. greater debate) kind people in the world than there are evil people.
Emma was absolutely floored that people who didn’t even know her would take the time out of their day to send her a Christmas card/gift to try to brighten her holidays. She asked me to please make sure everyone knew that she loved all of the cards/gifts, and thanked each person individually as she was reading the cards.
A little background on Emma - she’s a voracious reader. From an incredibly young age, she has loved reading. She could say her alphabet at a year old and was reading before she started kindergarten. She has a “late” birthday so they wouldn’t let her start kindergarten when she was four, even though she would have turned five a month later. Fast forward to when we again found ourselves dealing with this same confounded school district. They were doing their Kindergarten screening on her to start school the following year when she was five. At this point, they wanted to have a discussion with my wife and I about starting Emma in the first grade vs. Kindergarten because, although she was only five, she was now reading on a sixth grade level and they felt she wouldn’t learn anything from their Kindergarten curriculum. Attending this screening was a formality. We had no intentions of sending her to that school after our interaction with them when she was four and their unwillingness to conduct a screening and discuss an age waiver, etc. Since we lived in the district, we HAD to go to that Kindergarten “round up” to let them know she wouldn’t be attending the school. Not sure why a phone call wouldn’t suffice, but I digress...
I bring all of that up to let you all know that we try to instill what some folks might consider to be “old-fashioned” values in our children. Although we live in Alaska, both my wife and I were raised in the south. We still say yes sir and no sir, yes ma’am and no ma’am, please and thank you, and we make sure people know when we appreciate a favor or their kindness.
One thing we taught Emma from a very young age was the importance of taking the time to read the card in spite of what falls out when you open it. Being geographically isolated from the rest of our families means the kids get a lot of cards from relatives on birthdays and money invariably falls out. With regularity, Emma opens her cards and reads them in their entirety before giving the first look at what may have fallen in her lap. She read each and every one of these cards, asked me how I knew each person, and then asked me to tell each person thank you.
By the following statement, I mean no offense. My wife and I did open all of the letters/packages before giving them to Emma. I hope you can all understand why, and although this is a great place, we can never be too careful when it comes to our children. I didn’t suspect anything other than what she received, but if someone was going to send something inappropriate or dangerous, we wanted to be the ones to see it first. Obviously everything sent was on the level and we proceeded to give them to Emma. However, in opening/screening the letters, there was one from Illinois that was particularly well-written that explained what was going on so well that we let her open that one first to set the tone. In short, it mentioned the pipe forum and group of guys with a common interest. It mentioned hearing that Emma had received some very difficult news and that people wanted to brighten her spirit around the holidays. It mentioned how we cannot control things in this world and it’s very important to focus on the things we can control, like enjoying family and being happy.
She thoroughly enjoyed reading a story about a member’s cat that was a bit of an engineer and was always figuring out how to get into things, enjoyed the card that played music when it was opened, and had a blast opening the three cards from, we assume, a family who makes excellent bracelets. Her eyes lit up when she saw a card with a gift card to McDonald’s and another card from a family with a six year old daughter named Avery who wanted Emma to have a rainbow loom bracelet she’d made. She particularly enjoyed looking through her “silly elf glasses” while opening a shiny purple package with a card AND a milk chocolate Santa Claus and another bracelet. As I mentioned, she’s an avid reader, even at this young age (I swear the child reads a 200-300 page novel every 2-3 days), so she was beyond excited to see her copy of the action bible! She read each of the cards several times and now they’re all arranged in her room, on display on her desk.
While she was opening everything up, I took a few notes to share with you guys:
“Well this definitely brightens my Christmas!”
Me - “Emma, you can get TWO happy meals with that gift card!”
Emma - “No way, Daddy, it has a McFlurry on the gift card, I’m using it for ice cream!!”
(Regarding the three different cards from (we assume) the same family and the bracelets contained therein)
“Daddy, these bracelets are beautiful. Did they make these just for me?”
“I bet he has a hard time hiding treats from those cats!”
“Daddy, this whole Santa Claus is made out of MILK CHOCOLATE!!!”
Obviously I’m highly biased. However, I think we’re doing a pretty good job with our kids and it becomes apparent when they’re in the company of their friends. I say that to point out that I know my daughter and I know how kind and caring she is. She’s genuine beyond that which is afforded by innocence alone. All of this is said to provide background to the following comment.
When she was done reading through everything that has arrived so far, she looked up at me and said, “Daddy, can you please make sure that they all know I really appreciate this?”
She didn’t say it because we raised her to say it. She didn’t say it because it’s the right thing to say and is an automatic response to receiving a gift. She said it with a level of maturity that was impressive, to be honest. She was so genuine and sincere when she said it, that I’m positive this gesture hit home and has really helped a little girl cope with a situation that no little girl should have to cope with.
Thank you all.
Thanks for the nice follow up.
I know that I will continue to think about Emma and all involved this holiday season.
I know that I will continue to think about Emma and all involved this holiday season.
@BarrelProof thanks for the update. Sounds like you have a great daughter and shes going to get through this.
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