Christmas Eve ends the quest for the perfect gift, except for those who search all year for items to put in the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. With an eye to stockpiling a variety of quality goodies I, along with many others, stay alert for great buys.
Last fall, I shopped big box stores and picked up a number of deeply discounted shorts at the end of the summer sales. Then one afternoon, God nudged me away from the chain store to a small local thrift store. As I entered I saw several large boxes heaped with brand new summer attire. “Anything in those boxes you can have for a dollar. We need the space,” the clerk said. The big box store had dumped all their deadstock to the thrift shop.
Several grandmothers and mothers had already begun piling their buggies with shorts and shirts for next year. I do like to sew. The previous year I had spent a lot of time making shorts for boys’ OCC boxes. I like to sew. I like bargains more. I began searching for shorts to fit preschoolers to teenagers. I also found a few items for girls. Our seamstresses could focus on sewing other items.
The rest of the year, as I passed the boxes filled with brand new shorts with deep pockets, I thanked the Lord for sewing for us. After we packed all of the shorts into shoeboxes this year, I thought, “that was great, Lord, but nothing guarantees it will happen that way again.”
Two months after packing OCC boxes, hubby and I went to the Goodwill Outlet bins in Little Rock to look for Bibles and Christian literature to take to Love Packages in Butler, Illinois. As we walked in I saw several bins topped with shiny fluorescent yellow-green plastic things. Up close, I saw large plastic envelopes each holding one article of clothing: A good quality T-shirt, a pair of orange pants, an orange suit coat, an orange hat, or a pair of pants with a collage of patterns. The collage reminded me of my grandson’s style of attire. I texted him, “can you use any of these?”
He replied, “yes! Get some for me.”
“Please, come and pick out what you want,” I urged him knowing he was close by and not heavily scheduled for the rest of the day.
He came and left with 11 items having spent about a dollar each.
I returned to looking for Bibles. Then I stopped, turned to hubby and said, “those white t-shirts made with quality fabric have colorfully printed fronts that would be great for OCC next year. At a dollar a piece, it matches last year’s price.”
He agreed. “I’ll sort through those bins over there. Just get the sizes that the older children can use.” He began flipping plastic envelopes, looking at sizes. More than an hour later we had gone through all six or eight bins and met again. “You know we might get some of the smaller sizes of those orange or collage printed pants for the bigger boys.
“I’ll begin in this bin,” he said. I returned to the bins I had just left.
Three hours later, we decided the plastic envelopes would take up too much space in the shoeboxes, plus add to the weight at a store where cost is determined by weight. We removed the envelopes and neatly organized three overflowing buggies of clothing plus 25 Bibles and books for Love Packages.
So we do not have summer shorts for next fall’s packing party. We do have 130 nice t-shirts and 40 pairs of slacks each with four deep pockets. God has sewn up a pile of clothes enabling time to sew dresses or other items for our next packing party.