The Franke Team has, for several Christmases past, celebrated the season with a Secret Santa gift exchange among team members. For five days, we would secretly place a small gift into the person’s stocking and anticipate their reaction.  Of course, after Hurricane Ike and other financial happenings, the stockings were replaced with buckets, but for five days there were clever gifts and not one lump of coal.

This past year, however, the decision was made to share our Christmas with members of the armed services.  In lieu of drawing names and giving daily gifts to a team member, six names were randomly chosen from the anysoldier.com website, thus the Four Days of Christmas for the Troops began.  Each of the four days represented a category, i.e. entertainment, toiletries, clothing, and food. 

At the end of the four days there was a variety of snack items, non-perishable food, toiletries, clothing, books, electronic games, CD’s, and DVD’s which were then packed into sixteen boxes totaling over 116 pounds.  The packages were mailed to the six names who would in turn distribute the contents to their fellow team members in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Each box also contained cards or a letter to be shared by the men and women of the group.

Today, we received a note from one of the recipients expressing her gratitude.  It was great to know that several of the packages had actually made it, but more importantly that the contents were such a morale booster, specifically the Michael Jackson CD according to the recipient. 

Our team received such a blessing to have been able to share our Christmas with the men and women in the armed services.  We also began a new tradition, a white elephant gift exchange.  Re-gifting was a huge success!