Christmas time!

Ah, my favourite time of year. I love it not because of the days we get off work, nor the endless feast we will have with family and friends, nor the massive sales that are happening in hopes of keeping their business in the black. I love it for its spirits of giving.

Yusuf and I want to cultivate this spirit in our family by volunteering on Christmas day every year. This year, we have the chance to help out in the Good Shepherd center on Queen St. E. along with 4 other friends. We had lunch together and headed downtown to help out. The supervisor, Craig, gave us brief instructions and we started working right away. There were 2 main tasks for us: one was to open all the donated food in time for Christmas lunch/dinner and the other task was to sort out all the canned goods into appropriate boxes for shipping to other distribution centers.

Yusuf and I sorted canned goods. First, we tackled the baby food pile, then the beans and then the beans with meat pile. We had no idea that there were so many kinds of beans! Lima, lentil, romano, kidney, red kidney, white kidney, black eyed peas, split peas, peas, black beans, …., well, you get the picture!

It was definitely a very rewarding experience. When we have time in the future, we will plan to go back and help out some more. There are so many things there that can be improved – being the industrial engineer.

Aside from this volunteering opportunity, a couple of my friends got together and we put on a concert for various senior homes. We went to two MonSheong branches and one senior home in Stouffville called Beckingham Manor. It was so wonderful to be able to share our hobby with people who enjoy it! Some of the elderly didn’t even want to leave after we were done! We had to scramble and play Christmas carols by ear to satisfy their thirst for music. We loved the experience, I’m sure we’ll do it again in 2009!