The Magic of Christmas

I have been thinking a lot about all of the cards that say something like “the magic of Christmas” and wondering what exactly that means. What it means to me is that feeling you get when you smell your Christmas tree, turn on your lights for the first time, wake up on Christmas morning, see the kids eyes light up while they see whether Santa has eaten the treats they left and this year some more extreme generosity.

I continue to be completely blown away by the generosity of people at Long View and this year was no exception. Around the company, many groups decided to adopt a family. It's a great program that we have locally because you choose what you can afford then you get a list of your family and the kids wishes. Your responsibility is to shop for the gifts and then get wrapping paper. This, along with a gift card to a local grocery, is delivered to the family by the organization putting it all together. This way the parents know what they're giving the kids, they wrap the gifts and they can feel proud shopping for their own christmas dinner.

However, our sales team decided to adopt "one of their own families" in their words and put together contributions for us. This still brings tears to my eyes as I write this. We aren't a needy family by any means, we live in a nice house, I drive a nice car and have some expensive taste in clothes for sure! But on top of that life we are used to, Ryan's medical expenses still climb up. On top of the Avastin there are many other treatments he does and supplements he takes to keep healthy. We aren't sure which combination is the silver bullet, so he keeps doing all of them!

The contributions that were put together from Calgary families helped us for 16 treatments of Avastin and 9 monts of other alternative treatments and supplements for Ryan - absolutely amazing! When that fund came to a close, my boss stepped forward and said that he wasn't going to let Ryan stop this drug because we couldn't pay for it and he didn't want us to have to adjust our lifestyle completely to continue to pay for it. WOW! A GREAT man just doesn't say enough.

It has been a crazy year for our family and last year we honestly thought it might be our last together, but because of the amazing help of everyone around us - it wasn’t and won’t be for a very long time.

Happy holidays to you all, I hope you all get to experience the magic of Christmas in your own ways.