I love this time of year. I’m sure many people feel the same way. I love putting up the tree and decorations, love it when it's time to sweep off the first flakes of ice off the walk (though it can get very tedious later!), love the rich food and the family visits, the shopping for gifts, the getting of gifts – in fact nearly everything traditionally associated with this season. But I think the thing I love most of all about this season is the visit my husband and I make to a children’s home.

It’s a small place, being near a small town and averaging about 20 – 30 kids in all. Every year for the last three years, we’ve been asking our friends for donations of checks, clothes, books, or toys and we bundle it into a truck and collect the grandkids and we’re off to spend the day before Christmas Eve at the home.

The feel-good factor in interacting with these kids is enormous and sometimes tinged with a little sadness because some familiar faces over the years are no more – because they’ve now been adopted which is actually great for them. I bring along home-baked goodies and things I’ve knitted and though it sounds such a cliché, seeing the look on their faces as they unwrap the things we’ve brought gives me such a high. For one day, I really and truly feel part of a great vast extended human family!