Toyland

The grand panda total was $314, which bought a lot of toys. I actually don’t know how many, because other people brought in toys too, and there were the ones I brought in with my shopping, but I think when I got the final count in the cube, it was153 toys. This does not include toys that other people on the floor had already turned in.

My initial thought at the beginning was that I wanted to get 37 toys personally, plus contributing to Panda. I had 31 or 35, and my sisters had given me another five, but then the last week there was another Buy 1, Get 1 special on the $6.99 toys at Walgreens. I had $56 left from the one paycheck, but then there was the extra one coming in the next day, so I decided the kids could have that all, and that got another sixteen toys.

On the last day I brought those in, and also sorted through my claw machine prizes. Initially I was thinking that I would only give the nicest ones, because you know sometimes they are using scrap fabric and the animals aren’t always that pretty, but my teammates thought they were all good, because younger kids don’t care if colors clash. Even the crab and lobster, which were small and kind of weird, they thought were good because they had such cute eyes. I resolved my concerns by putting a rubber band around their claws so they would stay together. That way, it was two small toys, instead of one.

There were three I kept. The rabbit is the first I kept after starting to play the machines again, so it had some sentimental value. One is an elephant that I do really like, but also the fabric is kind of easily frayed, so it would not work well as a toy. The other is the Queen of Hearts from the old Disney cartoon, and I think she’s just too weird. These are poor kids. They deserve a break. Anyway, that was another fifteen toys, counting the crab and lobster as a single unit.

Otherwise, there was so much variety. Lisa S had brought a Justin Bieber doll and a Monster High doll. There were balls. There were scientific things. There were play sets and art sets, and the thing is looking at it you almost feel the glee of a small child—not to the point that you need to run and tear into them (which is good because it would be counterproductive)—but enough to smile and get wide-eyed.

My teammates give me a lot of credit for it, both for my organizational role and the shopping I do, but there are two points that I need to make.

First of all, this is my Christmas shopping. Everyone else has children or boyfriends or parents or siblings, and we don’t do that, which works for us, so that frees me for this.

Also, it would not work as well without the participation of everyone else, It’s not just the money and the baking either. Holly does scrapbooking and cardmaking, so she made some Christmas cards and gift tags for the raffle. Teresa brought in some jewelry sets she had picked up at a sale for a silent auction. Mary brought in some socks and slippers for raffle in association with Slipper day, and Sydney, who is one of out temps, donated a pie server for a raffle as well. I did pretty well myself, winning a pair of slippers, some gift tags, the pie server, and a pair of earrings that I liked. Ultimately, we have a lot of fun with it.

When the totals came in, our floor ended up with 868% participation, or about 8 ½ toys per person. The next highest amount was 358%, so we feel pretty good. I know we can do that because we do it as a team.

The one thing that I did not really do that I thought about last year was trying to get the other teams on the floor into competing with us, to really increase the results. However, the one group moved to a different location, and the other group telecommutes a lot and we never see them. Next year though, I hope we can get other people more involved.

For all of our unholy glee in winning (and there is some of that), the giving still feels good, and it’s good for the soul.