Bell Ringing Bliss

Tis the season! I have always wanted to ring bells for the salvation army. I tried to a few times as a family but got busy, no interest from home, didn't know where to go, etc. Now that I advise a middle school volunteer group - I coerced them into agreeing to do bell ringing for the holidays.
I (sooooo smartly) signed us up to bell ring for 5 hours on two days! Yep - last Friday and yesterday.

Okay - Friday from 4-9pm. Cold night. There were about 10 kids for the first hour. I told them to bring instruments if they had them. A trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, and flute showed up for entertainment. Of course no one seemed to know the same songs so we had more of a guess that tune among all the other tunes.
all the kids but my own two, all had left by 6 pm. That was pretty long. I still had an hour until the other advisor was going to relieve me.
My son just started playing the clarinet and knows jingle bells & hot cross buns. So after the 100th time of jingle bells, I turned on the "boom box" (do people call them that still?) and played my holiday CDs. My youngest danced, we gave out candy, we sang- it was a jolly time! Time flew!
We actually filled the kettle. OK- the real reason was probably that the store we were in front of had a big 50% off holiday sale. I will continue in my dream world to think I made it up in the ranks of bell ringing. But I should choose shorter shifts next year.

Yesterday was about the same except we had poor weather. It was a rainy slushy blizzard and no one was out shopping with the weather. We did not fill the kettle but my husband joined us and brought us hot chocolate.

I thanked my family for the best Christmas gift.
Let me explain what happened last year.....

Last year, all I asked for was a nice shopping trip as a family to purchase the sharing tree gifts. We arranged this on a Saturday & arrived right around lunchtime. We went to the food court & we let everyone choose their own lunch. Once everyone was fed - off to shop for others- goodwill- thinking of those less fortunate....

We went into a store looking for a sweatshirt hoodie for a teen. I didn't like the quality of what this store had so we left. As we are leaving my oldest complains first- "are we EVER going to buy these?" I patiently tried to explain that it will take time to find the best match. A few minutes later in the next store- my youngest complains next "Are we going to buy anything for US?"
I patiently explain that the day is about others not ourselves and these are gifts for charity. He then asked "Who is this charity person? and Why can't we go look at the toys?"
Then my husband's pager goes off and then he is on the cellphone with work for the next 30 minutes while I am trying to be patient with the whiny kids that don't know why I am looking around a store, checking prices and wish these guys could SHOP.

So I caved. In tears, I told everyone we need to go home that I was just going to lose it.
I got a lot of apologies and they weren't being mean or spiteful - they just don't browse or get a sense of good feelings to shop for gifts. I love to buy gifts. It is more fun than for myself. If this was a sporting goods place - it might have been different.

So my husband suggested I go and spend the afternoon alone- enjoying the time in peace. I ended up calling my 9 yr old goddaughter and she came with me. We had a delightful time! She never asked for anything, had great ideas, laughed at silly fashions, tried on hats with me, - so at the end I bought her a few fun things - just because.
I know this isn't with all men - but I am out numbered. My guys just can't. They can grocery shop on good days & are well behaved in stores & resturants. I guess this was just not making sense to them. Maybe I built it up to be something more than they saw.

BUT this year's bell ringing event was better than the shopping and it didn't cost us anything - just some good quality time together.