"Christmas Shoes" (Not the song, but the kind hung by the chimney with care)

Last December Cory was asked to be a guest judge for a Christmas Stocking Charity event or as Phoebe calls them "Christmas Shoes".  When Cory came home he told me all about this neat charity event that raises money every year to benefit families of children with cancer by buying them gas cards or grocery cards.  Many families spend so much on their children's treatment they cannot afford to buy food for their themselves or they travel so far or often they spend all their money on getting to the hospital with no way of necessarily getting back home, so they created this benefit to raise money by auctioning of Christmas Stockings. We had been looking for something extra we could do at Christmas time so we participated.

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Cory had told me that the cutest stocking and the blue ribbon winners were stockings that had themes to them so knowing nothing else, except make a theme, I went to work. I found the most darling stocking pattern online and decided to make the theme Babie's First Christmas. I had one minor problem however. I got tons of cute items including a blanket, teething toy, baby keys, book of colors, links, & adorable stuffed frog, but only two items actually fit in the stocking. Cory helped come-up with an alternative of just tying the rest around the stocking and making a cute ribbon bow. It didn't turn out as I originally planned it to, but still pretty cute & I knew I got the right stuff when Phoebe cried and cried when she saw we were taking her froggy prince away.

When we arrived at the auction it quickly became apparent that we were out of our league and next year & maybe I better step up my game and get more creative. There were 100's of stockings, most of went directly to kids with cancer, but about 40 or so were up for auction including this Harry Potter themed "stocking"  which was actually a rubber galosh with one cut in half to resemble Hogwarts and the other boot full Harry Potter toys and topped off with a real talking sorting hat and sitting right behind it a Harry Potter Lego Land.  

In the end, 4 people ended up biding on our stocking and it sold for $40 so I was thrilled; there were some stockings that got 1 or fewer bids on them. We even ended up buying a "stocking."  It was not as cute as one we really wanted, but most of them were quickly bid out of our price range. The stocking we came home with was a green & reindeer themed "stocking" which really was a stuffed reindeer sitting in what was described to be a blanket, but when we arrived home we discovered was actually a dog bed (too perfect for Phoebe, she really wants a dog and play make believe that we have a dog & carries it all around or even lays in it herself). The bed also had a couple of kids reindeer books, a Shrek memory game & lots of candy.  

This was pretty fun evening and Cory and I plan on participating in it again next year and are even brain storming themes now; if you have any good ideas let us know!