My Angel's First Angel

This year, my family decided not to do our traditional "White Elephant" game at the annual family Hanukkah party. Instead, my sister and her husband mentioned that they were going to adopt an angel from the Salvation Army Angel Tree. Loving this idea, Sam and I decided we should do the same. So, this past week, I took Banner to the mall to pick out an angel from the tree. When I looked at the numerous boys and girls who needed to be adopted, I had a real problem looking over the information about a certain child and thinking, "No, not that one," or moving on from one child to another. It just felt wrong. How do you pick?? So, I came up with an impromptu idea to look for a child the same age as Banner. But, the youngest I could find on the tree was a 4-year-old girl. I asked one of the volunteers what the youngest age was, and she said she had a 3-month-old whose list she had not put on the tree yet. I decided in that moment that each year, Banner would adopt a child his own age so that he could help out a child just like him. When I told the volunteer this, she said, "Man, that's one of those ideas I wish I had 10 years ago!" Then, she found the wish list of an 8-month old boy. This was the closest we could find to Banner's age, so we went with him: Juan. Juan needed a winter coat, and he wanted a musical toy. He was an 8-month old boy who wore 6-month sizes and size 2 diapers. And, immediately after adopting his angel, Banner went shopping to go above and beyond Juan's wish list.

We bought him the softest winter coat, a coat Banner couldn't keep his hands off of because it was so fun to touch. We bought him some pants, a shirt, some socks, a musical toy phone, some blocks, a book, a puzzle, and some diapers. Then, a few days later, we all went back to the Angel Tree to drop off our gifts. Here's a couple pics of the donation - From: Banner, To: Juan...