Wrap it up

Sunday night I got to do the best thing in the world. Wrap gifts! Each year our church wraps gifts for free at our local mall. Once a year right before Thanksgiving the mall has a night called, Magical Night of Giving. Great discounts at all the stores.

I had never been to one of those before but thought it would be fun. So I signed up to wrap gifts, which meant I got to shop half the time and wrap gifts the other time. I took my sister went with me. I was so excited. I was going to get to shop!

We got to the mall and there were tons of people there. I was shocked I didn’t expect that many people. When we walked in we were handed, I guess you could call it a program. Betsy opened hers up and she won a door prize. We went and clamed her prize (I was mad that she won and not me, I mean I did invite her. But then the gift ended up being a candle so I wasn’t too mad…I don’t like candles). We then proceeded to shop. Now I love to shop anyone that knows me can tell you that, but there is something about big crowds and lines at the mall that just doesn’t motivate me.

We walked from store to store looking at stuff, but then we would see the lines and we were out the door. I was kind of bummed. I wanted to go home with at least something and time was running out before we had to go wrap gifts. Someone we knew in the mall told us that Starbucks were giving away free 8oz cups of their holiday drinks and a $5 dollar gift card. Even if you don’t like Starbucks you should never turn away a gift card. So Betsy got a drink and I got a gift card!

It was then time to WRAP! Now we all know that wrapping is not fun (unless you are one of those few who love it) but wrapping gifts for other people is a blast! Now when I started wrapping gifts a couple years ago I was pretty bad, but after wrapping so many times people have showed me easy was to do them. Previous years I would love it when people said, Thank you! Or this made my holiday better, but not this time. The best part about wrapping was the conversations I had with other people. Now every thing I said I probably repeated 10-20 times but they didn’t know that I had the same conversation with the person before them.

I know that we were with the Vineyard, but I got to tell this lady about the church on the Westside! She was in her mid 50’s and she was asking who was doing this.
I told her, “The Vineyard.”
She said, “There’s a vineyard that opened up by me.”
“Where do you live?”
“On the Westside.”
“Yes”, I said, “They meet in the Danberry Theater on Sunday mornings. You should check it out sometime.”

I then went on to ask her where she goes to church. She explained to me that she and her husband go to St. Vincent and they have just recently got a new minister. They have been talking about checking out other churches. It awesome how you can reach out to people by just wrapping gifts! As she left she said I think we might check it out!

I actually left and was amazed at how much I had opened up to people. I am a pretty shy person and outreaches aren’t normally my thing because I have to “alive” to people. I left and I felt ALIVE! I felt like I was on a high! I wish I could do that every night!