Winter is here and for the third year in a row for me and my good friend Heide this means Winter Wishes time! In my very first blog post last November (Gosh… it has been a year already!) I talked about volunteering with New York Cares organization and all the reasons I love it.
You can check it out here if you’d like - www.dinarachetyrova.com/blog/it-is-the-season-for-caring
One of my favorite things at New York Cares is the Winter Wishes program, which, you guessed it, helps to make winter wishes come true for kids, teens and senior citizens, that due to different circumstances may not get Christmas gifts at all.
Gift wrapping party with my lovely ladies. Heide is hosting second year in a row
I absolutely love doing this! You get to be Santa for a bit and make someone happy come Christmas, what could be better? Can you think of a better way of getting into holiday spirit and feeling the magic of the season? After all the best way of experiencing magic is making your own.
To become a Santa for a season you need to sign up for the project in advance on New York cares page - www.newyorkcares.org/search/projects/results once volunteers read and process all the letter (what a little hardworking elves) you will be matched with a kid, teen or a senior. I personally choose one in each age group :) so I am getting 3 gift letters total.
Kinda overly excited to deliver gifts
Here is an exciting part - you are getting an actual handwritten letters in a mail. I am honestly really excited each time, because I never know what to expect and it is always so fun to read what people wish for. Kids are really sweet, they usually write to Santa and decorate there letters, so special!
Every year is different, this time around I almost got a heart attack because one of my letters actually requested diamonds and I think my heart skipped a bit, how in a world can I do that, I mean I never had diamonds myself and definitely am not in a business of buying some. Thankfully quick research revealed that my lady actually asked for a perfume, phew, this I can do. I was relieved….
All wrapped and ready to bring joy
I remember one of this years my friend Heide, who I am doing this project with (she has her 3 gifts and I have mine) got a request for an Easy Bake Oven. This was my first encounter with one of those things and it turned out those things are big, like really big and heavy. I don’t know why, but we decided to buy it first and then ended up logging that thing around all over shopping center and Herald Square, while buying the rest of gifts. Afterwards we met some friends for a drink in East Village and then another place and another one. Amazingly we didn’t loose any of the gifts and Easy Bake Oven made it out in one piece. Thank the Lord.
So you see, Winter Wishes are fun! Me and Heide usually buy gifts together, then we get together for a gift wrapping party with christmas music and cupcakes and friends (Jarah is a master wrapper, candy canes for everyone!) and then meet up again for delivering day - that’t when we rent a car and drop gifts off at the shelters, schools, community centers, you name it. I think in this three years we’ve been all over five boroughs.
Delivery day
We learn as we go. The very first time we rented the car too late in a day, it got dark very fast, it was raining and we managed to get lost on a way, we also didn’t think thru that most of this places will be closed after 6 p.m. so we ended up calling everyone in a panic mode, trying to figure out how late places will be open till and how many we can hit before we need to return the car. I think we ended up delivering only one or two gifts that time.
Now we are more prepared - getting the car early in a morning and with all of the locations mapped out. It’s a piece of cake.
Setting up for a gift wrapping
The gifts are always different and we talk to each other, making sure that we get the most suitable once. This year for example I got a request for a bike for a 9 year old… as you can imagine bikes are super expensive, especially good once. We considered briefly getting a gently used one, but it is my believe that gifts should be brand new and used bike, might not be safe. So long story short we decided on a skateboard and a helmet, because you know, safety first. I do hope, my guy will be happy with the gift. I know how important bikes are for kids and you always hear this stories about childhood traumas, when they asked for a bike and got a mechanic chicken instead, but skateboard is no chicken, so I am hoping my kid will be happy with Santa this year.
It has been three years and this project turned out to be a tradition of ours. It is something I am looking forward to, it is what sets the mood and lets me know the time for wonder is here. It makes me so happy to know that I can help someone’s wishes come true, that I can give joy to someone, it’s a tiny spark, but it’s mine and that’s what helps ignite the holiday cheer in my soul.
If you wanna be a part of this or want to learn more about program you can do it here - www.newyorkcares.org/winter-wishes
Happy Holidays
<3 Dinara
P.S. How do you get into Holiday Mood and what are some of your traditions?
Santa babe