My second son and I went bell ringing tonight. I could sum up the night with just two letters . . . Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! The weather was cold and so was the giving.
As we stood out there I thought about two kinds of people the homeless and hunters. I imagined a homeless person trying to sleep through the night on a bench covered with a “quazi-sheltering cover in this kind of weather. And then I thought of hunters who intentionally go out in the cold. But they are wise with their dress. They know how to keep real warm.
Before we left I told my son to dress warm. He didn’t really listen. So I brought an extra coat. When we got there he realized he was cold. I went out to our van and managed to find “little sister’s princess blanket.” I wondered how he would respond to this blanket. Would my fourteen year old brave the cold to avoid a really comfy warm blanket? When he saw it in my hands he smiled and grabbed it. He was glad to get something warm. I was nice . . . I also gave him another jacket to put on top of the pastel blue blanket.
I desperately avoid cold. I dressed in three long sleeve shirts, two pairs of socks and my long wool coat with gloves. We stood on the southside of the store entrance. The cold north wind could hardly get to us. We were right next to a neighborhood Wal-mart. Noone was there to bell ring. I contemplated moving there but when I checked it out we just weren’t protected from freezing wind.
We didn’t get very many donations. I went in the store for a restroom break and I think my son ended up getting the most donations of the night. And when the lady in charge came by at the end of the night she told me we could have stayed inside and just greeted people and just not ring the bell. We would have gotten more donations. Oh well, lesson learned.