Tree's for "needy" kids

[dustysky]

I would like to know what the opinion is here on the Dis about the Christmas tree's that you see in most stores and restaurants. They have a lots of tags on them with ages of kids and there request for gifts.
We do not have much for money but often the years that I could I have taken a tag and gotten gift for a child off those tree's.
This year every tree I have looked at has requests for HUGE gifts. Just an example, one tree alone had requests for Ipods, PS3's, $60.00 video games, etc.
I guess maybe its me but I think those gifts are a bit much to ask from perfect strangers.

Don't get me wrong, I understand NEED, we have been in many different situations in our life. I still can not imagine asking for that type gift in that way (needy family application).

What's your take on this? Do you think its no big deal to ask for such gifts??

 

[hidmickey:myantidrug]

Those things, I think, are rediculous. For children without proper clothing, etc., are iPODs really necessary?

I remember in religious classes I took for confermation, first communion, etc., we would have a boy and girl that we bought gifts for each year. They would ask for sweatsuits or maybe a doll. I remember a set of brother and sister especially. The sister asked for Clue so that their family would have something to do together and the brother asked for a large blanket for them to sit under together. It really touched me with the closeness.

I'd have to say that anyone asking for video games can't be that needy that they already have the player. Or an iPOD...they obviously have a computer of some sort. It's hardly what I would call needy by any stretch.

 

[*Fantasia*]

Ipods, PS3's, $60.00 video games, etc.!! Wow.. I can't even afford that for my kids or myself!! That's a bit too much.. unless money is no object. No can do.

 

[dustysky]

I am glad I am not alone on this.

 

[ntburns22]

We take our children to pick names off of a tree every year. We do see a lot of high ticket items on some tags. Those are the tags for the most part still there when we take our gifts in. This year DD 7 in January picked a 7 year old girl that request a barbie and tops and jeans. DD picked out a Barbie and we got her an outfit from head to toe. DS picked a boy that all he wanted was Spiderman, so we got a Spiderman actions figure and a "bad" guy along with an outfit.

 

[hornedfrog]

I think that many kids who ask for that stuff are going to be very disappointed! Although sometimes groups of people will pick a child or two and go in on buying things, so it is possible, I guess, that a child will get big ticket items!

When I have participated (just me personally, not as a part of a group), I have looked over the tags and looked for specific things...most tags tell the age of the child (I prefer to 'sponsor' a younger child - under 7 or 8 usually). I also look to see what items they have written. Its hard to pass one by from a little girl who wants a teddy bear! Much easier to pass one by from a 12-year-old girl who wants an iPod! The ones that we do also include clothing/shoe sizes, so what we end up doing is buying 1 practical item (pair of shoes or a sweatshirt or something) and then a fun item like a toy.

But yes...some of those tags do make me shake my head!

 

[PrincessKitty1]

The trees I do gifts from are for foster kids. Hey, every kid wants a special toy, and I have no problem with buying a nice toy for a needy child (all foster children I have ever known were indeed needy).

That said, I am VERY careful with my charitable gifts as I have seen my middle-class next-door neighbor featured in the local paper as a "needy" family and have seen other abuses as an employee of social service and medical agencies.

 

[Hixski]

I would like to know what the opinion is here on the Dis about the Christmas tree's that you see in most stores and restaurants. They have a lots of tags on them with ages of kids and there request for gifts.
We do not have much for money but often the years that I could I have taken a tag and gotten gift for a child off those tree's.
This year every tree I have looked at has requests for HUGE gifts. Just an example, one tree alone had requests for Ipods, PS3's, $60.00 video games, etc.
I guess maybe its me but I think those gifts are a bit much to ask from perfect strangers.

Don't get me wrong, I understand NEED, we have been in many different situations in our life. I still can not imagine asking for that type gift in that way (needy family application).

What's your take on this? Do you think its no big deal to ask for such gifts??

I saw one last year that I thought took the cake. The kids all wanted that stuff and designer clothing. Even had the labels they wanted. But it was the mother that made me want to vomit. She wanted a car. Not a car that ran but a HIGH PERFORMANCE SPORTS CAR!!!!! Yeah, honey I will get right on that for you.

 

[rie'smom]

I don't pick names from the trees anymore. In our community, each deserving family is supposed to give their children's name to one tree organization. Turns out some people were going to every tree in town and then selling the gifts!!! So what we've done is give our housekeeper the extra money in her bonus. We also contribute to a charity that provides food and clothing to kids in the south pacific because our daughter's birth father was from Samoa.

 

[Michie]

I think what bothers me even more than the kids asking for really big ticket items, people buying knock off toys, junk toys for the kids. When I was in Walmart earlier this week, I overheard 2 women talking about the child they were buying for, she had asked for a Barbie, they did not want to spend that much on her Now, really, first of all, what little girl wants a knock off Barbie? You can buy Barbies for as little a 5 bucks at Big Lots, blahblahblah.

 

[lclark0621]

I am glad I am not alone in feeling this way.

We went to 3 different tree organizations before we found a few kids to buy for.

I always like finding at least one kid that is my DS's age so that he can shop for that child.

This year it was almost impossible to find young kids. I am hopping that is because all of them were already taken. But the trees here were filled with 16 year olds & up (not that I mind buying for older kids, but frankly, I could not afford their requests!). All of them wanting designer bags, shoes, really really high end clothes, and PS3s or WIIs, plus a list of games a mile long. One girl (17 years old) had a purse listed that sells for more then $2000 & specifically wrote "No knock offs!" on the ticket.

We finally found a tree that had some younger kids & kids with more resonable requests. We did find a 3 year old for DS to shop for. We went today to buy him some toys & clothes.

We spent a bit more then we had planned, but as we were going through both the toy & clothing stores, my DS kept finding things & saying "Mommy/Daddy the little boy will love this for Christmas!". I had just explained to DS we were shopping for a child who does not have as much as we do, so we are going to buy him some surprises for Christmas. So how do I say "No we wont be buying anymore clothes" when DS is handing me an outfit he "knows the little boy will love". I was very proud of my son.

 

[MrsPete]

I think some tweens/teens ask for these big-ticket gifts because they think EVERYONE ELSE has them. In fact, my own daughter has been whining that EVERYONE ELSE in 7th grade has an ipod and a flip-phone. I think kids this age could easily have the idea that "rich people" can afford to pick up half a dozen ipods for charity. Now, why their parents would ever allow them to write these things down is another story; their parents should know this is not realistic -- surely thier parents know that their tickets will STAY on that tree because no one's going to buy those things.

I remember a couple years ago I had a student -- a black student -- who definitely had the idea that ALL white people are rich. Occasionally he'd come in mad because he didn't have this or that, and on those days he'd be fuming about all the rich white people and their "rich things". He'd make comments like, "I saw that new rich red Jeep outside school this morning -- I know it's yours." or "I see you're wearing a new rich dress today." He'd always say these things in a very negative tone . . . as if I had something that I didn't deserve, or as if I'd taken something from him. When I was teaching him, I was still a newlywed and we were living on VERY little -- in fact, we'd just barely been able to add a second car to our household. I couldn't help noticing that he wore $100+ tennis shoes (and this was 15 years ago) and other expensive clothes . . . and I was going home to a house with sheets tacked up for curtains and three mismatched chairs around the hand-me-down table. Yet he was always angry at me because I'm a rich white person. I wonder if he outgrew that idea.

Anyway, back to the main point . . . I've quit doing the Angel Tree thing. I've heard of too many abuse stories: families putting their kids on multiple trees, middle-class families asking for things . . . I personally know a family whose kids last Christmas received TWO bikes each PLUS lots of other things all from multiple angel trees, churches, and other places. I've decided to do all my donating through my church. I trust that the church office staff has carefully chosen families who really are in need.

 

[PrincessKitty1]

So how do I say "No we wont be buying anymore clothes" when DS is handing me an outfit he "knows the little boy will love". I was very proud of my son.

That is very, very sweet!

 

[fabshelly]

I would like to know what the opinion is here on the Dis about the Christmas tree's that you see in most stores and restaurants. They have a lots of tags on them with ages of kids and there request for gifts.
We do not have much for money but often the years that I could I have taken a tag and gotten gift for a child off those tree's.
This year every tree I have looked at has requests for HUGE gifts. Just an example, one tree alone had requests for Ipods, PS3's, $60.00 video games, etc.
I guess maybe its me but I think those gifts are a bit much to ask from perfect strangers.

Don't get me wrong, I understand NEED, we have been in many different situations in our life. I still can not imagine asking for that type gift in that way (needy family application).

What's your take on this? Do you think its no big deal to ask for such gifts??

I've worked one of those trees.

They tell the children to write down what they want from Santa Claus. Since Santa can do anything, the kids honestly write down what they want.

 

[petchie]

We had a tree at work that had names on it. A total of about 10 families or 50 tags (small workplace). Our Dept took and entire family to do. Mom, Dad and 2 sons. Each tag has a spot for sizes and wants:

Shirt
Pants
Shoes
Jacket
Toy

Our family was very frugal with what they asked for, but the fathers tag was really odd. His pant size was listed as 36x34. His shoe size was listed as 6.5 and he requested warm work boot type of shoe. We thought a 6.5 size was very small for a grown man so we had our HR dept call to verfiy since we did not know who they were.

When HR called, the man got very quiet then started to cry. He said he lied on his tag and were they going to not donate to his family? and he was very sorry.

HR asked why he lied and just asked for his correct size and that we would still donate and not to be upset.

He lied because his oldest son needed sneakers for gym and asked for those on his tag so he was asking for warm boots for his son to wear to walk to school. He asked for a size anda half bigger than the child took so he could wear extra socks this year and get 2 years out of them with any luck and maybe the other son could grown into them too.

Needless to say, the kid got sneakers, snow boots(for play) and work boots (to walk to school) and we got dad his own sneakers and boots. We made sure that family had a very good Christmas.

It brings tears to my eyes even now thinking of how the dad was more worried about his sons feet than his own.

 

[mrsklamc]

Walgreens has a tree for the elderly- these people ask for things like a can of nuts or a pillow or blanket. I know for a lot of people Christmas is about kids, but those kinds of requests touch my heart a lot more than a teen wanting a $2000 purse.

 

[PrincessKitty1]

Walgreens has a tree for the elderly- these people ask for things like a can of nuts or a pillow or blanket. I know for a lot of people Christmas is about kids, but those kinds of requests touch my heart a lot more than a teen wanting a $2000 purse.

Thank you for the heads-up! I will check my local Walgreens!

When I worked in geriatric psychiatry, one of our employees collected donations every year for people on the Meals On Wheels route (primarily the elderly poor). I felt privileged to donate!

 

[fabshelly]

I like that Best Buy has a toys for teens box - once you're not small and cute anymore, Santa can sometimes "forget" you. If you feel like donating something to the teens who aren't asking for 2000.00 purses, a cd or an inexpensive radio is a great gift that some poor teen would appreciate.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Ds bought me home an angel from his tree at college. He said, here, you like to shop. I looked at the angel and it asked for a mens medium coat and hat. I asked ds to go to school and ask if I could get a large instead since I thought it might last the child longer. I asked ds when it was due. He told me he would find out. I also hinted it might be a little more than I wanted to spend since we already made alot of charitable contributions for the holiday season. He said well the other stuff on the tree is like bikes, uptown nikes, I asked what they are, dumb mom, he told me they are sneakers that are like $100 plus. He then found out the presents were due the next day. I told him there was no way I could physical go and do this. I felt terrible. He said, oh dont worry, there is a whole tree and a half left and no one is taking the angels off it, I am assuming mostly because what they kids are asking for is just too expensive. He also did another gift giving thing for another class and the requests were very reasonable - board games, sports equipment, walmart gift card etc. I am sure they could use the expensive gifts but I feel I can help alot more people with less expensive gifts.

 

[alliecats]

Walgreens has a tree for the elderly- these people ask for things like a can of nuts or a pillow or blanket. I know for a lot of people Christmas is about kids, but those kinds of requests touch my heart a lot more than a teen wanting a $2000 purse.

Our tree program this year at work is for the elderly in a rehab facility. Some of them requested like stuffed animals and warm robes. The list made me cry because the requests were just so humble and small. DH & I got a name, and I will probably check back in a week and get another.

I used to work at a dr's office and every year at Christmas we would go to the nursing homes where he had patients and distribute gift bags. They could only be home-approved items like oranges, warm socks, talcum powder, and a candy cane, but those people's faces would just light up. I think it's wonderful that the program is for the elderly this year because I think they tend to get forgotten this time of year.