If You are Writing to Ask for Money

If you are a real person with real needs, please check out our page Getting Help at Christmas for information on resources that we support and volunteer for, and which are already helping people in your community.

If you were hoping we were in the business of sending checks to strangers, no questions asked, please understand that we could not afford to do so even if we wanted to. This web site is run entirely by volunteers and costs us money to run. We do it gladly, without asking for any donations besides memories, poems, articles, songs, pictures, recipies, and stories, because we want to keep our favorite Christmas traditions alive and help other families establish their own traditions.

We do believe in helping real people with real needs, which we do largely by donating to and volunteering for charities with reputations for getting the maximum amount of help to the people who need it the most. But we don't have the time to check out unsolicted requests for money, no matter how believable or desperate they sound. Every one we have taken the time to check out turned out to be a professional scammer, and some were actually dangerous characters. Consequently, for our own protection, and the protection of our readers, we automatically delete every request for money.

I started to list some of the most distasteful, obnoxious, or creepy encounters here, but there's no point in giving our readers nightmares.

The creepy and distasteful factors aside, wasting time checking out these people's stories took far too much time away from doing things that actually help and encourage real people (including sharing encouraging articles on our web pages and supporting agencies that I know do good work).

Our article Make Your Giving Count has more information about organizations we support because they are "there for" people who really need help, as well as hints to avoid being cheated by scam "charities" this holiday season.

I apologize for having to interject something so negative into pages devoted to celebrating so many wonderful things, but, hopefully, shedding some light on this issue will help you understand that taking such a "harsh" stand on this topic actually enables us to be more helpful and encouraging to real people, especially the wonderful people we have met as a result of posting and maintaining this site

I certainly hope that you have a happy, safe, and healthy holiday season, and that you find ways to help and encourage others!

Paul Race
Family Christmas Online^TM
Old Christmas Tree Lights^TM
Cardboard Christmas^TM

For more information, please contact us.