Brrrr! Cold!!!! But what a good day to pack....

Today, we (the Op. Love From Home Board members) spent the day packing up all the Christmas/holiday cards we've received for our heroes. A local self-storage facility real near my house was kind enough to donate use of a large storage area (about the size of my garage, but without all our junk in it, haha) to us for a couple months for our Christmas card drive. I don't have the final count of how many cards we took in this year (will have that tomorrow), but we estimate we are somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000-ish, give or take. Will give y'all the final tally tomorrow! It was such a relief to have somewhere else to store all the cards this year... for once, we could move thru my living room, hahaha! Last year we shipped even more than 18000 cards, and what a challenge that was to negotiate our living room/dining room, while weaving thru stacks and stacks of tens of thousands of Christmas cards, haha! Yeah...thank GOD for the local storage owner guy and his most marvelous donation! The only downside to having a storage unit was that in December, it gets COLD. Like, in the 30s today. We had a small space heater in the unit with us, but it didn't do much if you weren't standing practically on top of the thing. By the time we were done, I think we were life-sized popsicles, haha! :)



I have a few hundred left here at my house (my nice, heated, WARM house!) that I'm in the process of boxing up now. :-) Tomorrow morning, December 3, at 0830, we'll be first in line at the post office with about a gazillion boxes. :-) Yeeehaw!



In spite of a very slow start, we've done alright this time around! I'm most happy about this...approximately 18,000 (that's eighteen THOUSAND - just think on how many people that is!) troops scattered all over the world, in all branches of the service, will receive a Christmas/Holiday card from YOU, yes YOU who sent them in...and YOU will have made a tremendous difference to each and every one of those 18,000 heroes out there. That's approximately 18,000 smiles, because of each of you!



Awesome job, folks! You have our eternal gratitude.



But don't get too comfy...starting in January, I'll be pestering the heck out of you for Valentine's cards and chocolate.... ;-) (Not for me, silly - for the troops!)



Anyway, stand by for the final tally of Christmas Card Drive 2008! I just know you are waiting with bated breath!