Operation Christmas Child Drop off is tomorrow at Chick Fil A Restaurants--November 11, 2014

I spent a lot of today gathering all the stuff I have been saving/bought to put into the Operation Christmas Child boxes.  These were the boxes I ordered from the website over the summer, but you can also pick these up at Chick Fil A--they were available last week (next year, think Election Day).   If you didn't get one of these, you can still use a shoe box, or lots of people buy those one dollar plastic boxes to use... This is a little of what my living room looked like:

This is a little of what my living room looked like:

   You can see that I am putting in leftover Pez Halloween candy (I put in all my kids' non-chocolate candy!)  from this past week--it doesn't go bad until 2016, and they are pumpkin/cat heads, nothing too scary!

   These are some of the boy's/men's boxers I bought last year at the Target Halloween 90% clearance sale--they are black, with a web-like design, but they were only .59 cents each, so I bought some to put in the boys' boxes.  I try to do mostly boy boxes, because they get the least amount (according to the website), but you can do whatever works for you.

I found some shirts from Old Navy upstairs that still have the tags on them...these are going into boxes for younger boys. 

If you look closely, you can see some of the goody bag items my kids get at parties all year that are still in the bags.  When my kids get home from birthday parties, I usually just put them right into my Operation Christmas Child bags.   My kids don't need another eraser or sticker, but some child overseas might really be happy to receive it. 

So, my point is that you might not really have to look too hard or buy too much to be able to fill up some boxes tonight for these children.   The Samaritan's Purse website has a short video showing kids opening up boxes all over the world, and it literally made me cry.   They do ask for a $7 per box donation to cover the shipping costs, so if you can make up a box for very little money, then it is a great way to make a lot of little kids happy (there is even a way to track your box donations, and see where/who it goes to, but we've never done that).