I’ve ordered the Amazon Gift Cards For The Mansion Aides, and I had another inexpensive idea for some of the residents, an idea I had last year but which got lost in the shuffle.

Thanks to the Army Of Good and the Mansion staff, the residents usually get a beautiful Christmas celebration the week before Christmas.

But I know that many of the residents wish they could also choose their own very modest presents to give to some of the aides and to their friends, other residents of the Mansion.

The Mansion is a Medicaid facility, and most of the residents live on a tight monthly budget, they don’t always have money left over for gifts.

The gifts they tell me they would love to give would be simple and inexpensive – a book, notecards, a beaded necklace, a tie bracelet, a pin, a colored pen, a book for their kids. They never ask for anything expensive.

A number have asked me if I could help, they tell me they will pay me back as soon as they can, but I don’t think that will be necessary. I’d like to raise no more than $400 so that the residents who wish to can buy gifts for each other and for the aides who care for them.

I think this would give them great pride, and a sense of participating in the holidays in an important way, something that is, in some ways, lost to them. At this coming time of year, they are the loneliest, and they miss their old lives the most.

I think it would be easy to raise this money – someone sent a donation already on Paypal, and I just barely mentioned the idea in a previous post.

I would ask the residents what they wish to get, and if they can’t get out to get it themselves – a van goes to Wal-Mart once a week –  I would purchase the gift for them, and get it wrapped.

It would be a great surprise if the residents could pass out their own gifts during the holidays. This would be offered to every resident, although I don’t think all of them could do it.

Some wouldn’t wish to, and I would, of course,  respect that. I don’t know precisely how many gifts would be involved, I would make sure they are modest and simple.

If there is any overage, it would be applied to the general Mansion Fund. I’m thinking gifts would be in the $5 to $10 range, plus wrapping and notecards.

I would do this all quietly (as quietly as one can do it off a blog) and make  certain everyone would have a gift for the person they love or who helps care for them.

I think the aides would be delighted as well. They are entitled to surprises too, and it would give aides and residents a common sense of a holiday.

Thanks so much for your support of the Mansion Gift Card Project, that will be a joy.

If you wish to help the residents – I think small donations should do it – you can send a payment to me, Jon Katz, P.O. Box,205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark it “Holiday Gifts/Mansion.”

And thanks.

I believe in small acts of kindness, we can go far at relatively little expense, and this is the season of good, or at least we can help make it that way.

I’m quite focused on the Mansion these days, especially around the holidays, when Red and I are most needed, I think. We will make it special, and with your help, there will be another full and dazzling Christmas celebration.

Thanks.