Santa is available 365 days a year. Yes, EVERY DAY. You'll see him at the store, at the park, maybe at a ballgame... Santa is a member of our community, not just a world traveler!
Would your child like a phone call, an email, a video message or a visit in person? Santa is available, and all these ways to contact Santa are FREE.
FREE.
As a response to high prices for "Santa" photos at shopping malls and as a reaction to the decision of some public venues to "tone down" or even CANCEL their "Santa" events, JollyVisits is pleased to announce that visits with Santa Claus DO NOT require payment. Not even at Christmastime, not even on Christmas Eve.
Parents and caregivers, please note: Gratuities (monetary donations) are welcome. There is NO REQUIRED OR MINIMUM AMOUNT. You and your event guests may donate as you are able and see fit. There will NEVER be a request for compensation from families or private individuals.
You may request a personal visit, phone call, email, postal letter, or video message from Santa at any time by emailing JollyVisits@gmail.com with your request.
Of course, you may ALWAYS request photos with Santa any time you see him out and about! He's never too busy and is thrilled at every chance to bring smiles to people everywhere he goes!
Here are a few things to know about a visit with Santa:
Santa NEVER PROMISES specific gifts unless parents/guardians/caregivers have said so previously. Santa ALWAYS PROMISES surprises and joy on Christmas Morning to those children who are good and take care of their families and do their best in school and at their responsibilities.
Santa tells children that their wishes are just that; they are Christmas WISHES. Sometimes we get the things we want right away, sometimes we have to wait a while, and sometimes the ones that know us best and love us most decide that what we want isn't good for us to have. Children are encouraged to believe in the love of their families and caregivers and not to see Santa as an "escape Claus"! (A little Christmas joke never hurt anyone!)
Santa is not just "Santa Claus", although the vast majority of children he meets these days call him that. He's also Sinterklaas in Holland and other Dutch regions of the world. He's "Papa Noel" (Father Noel) in Spanish-speaking countries. He's "Father Christmas" in England and the UK (and he sometimes looks very different than American Christmas cards make him look!). He's also "Ded Moroz" (dee-ED more-OSS" ("Father Frost") in Russia and neighboring countries, where he delivers gifts on New Year's Day, accompanied by Snegurochka (snay-GOO-roch-ka), his daughter, the "Snow Maiden". Yes, he is available for visits after Christmastime for those children who anticipate Father Frost each year!
You MAY call him Santa, you may call him Nicholas. Nicholas or Nikolas is his given name.
Santa is very aware of the "Elf On The Shelf" tradition, and has many elves that resemble the toys sold at Christmas. Feel free to ask about (insert your elf's name here) and what the elves do all year when they're not causing mischief around your house!
"Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" is a nice story. Children often ask Santa about Rudolph, and Santa's response is always about the STORY of Rudolph. Santa and his story are far, far older than that.
Santa is the modern inheritor of the story and the work of Nicholas of Myra, known as "Saint Nicholas", who began the tradition of giving to those less fortunate at Christmastime more than 1700 years ago. You may, therefore, according to your family's traditions, freely reference the Christmas Story as recorded in the Bible in questions to and conversations with Santa.
For more information about Santa including personal details, references, etc, please email us at JollyVisits@gmail.com. Thank You!
Monday, January 11, 2016
How the Gift Drive Works
Donating shoeboxes of gifts to the JollyVisits Gift Drive is EASY:
At the "dollar store" for a few things? Maybe the little one wants a coloring or activity book... don't buy one, buy two. Put the second one in the shoebox. Same with crayons, markers, colored pencils or whatever.
Buying a "grab bag" item or other small gift for someone's birthday? Buy two.
None of the items in the shoeboxes need be expensive at all. We're suggesting $5 TOTAL, not per item, in each shoebox. We're counting on the kind-hearted people who CAN afford $5 per box so we can give out blessings to those who can't afford Christmas gifts for their children.
The math is simple... if Santa gets 100 people to donate one box a month, 1,100 children will receive free Christmas gifts from us this year. If we get 500 people to donate ONE BOX a month between January 15th and November 30, we'll have 5,500 gifts to give away.
Here are a few things we DON'T want:
1) We DON'T WANT people donating expensive gifts. If you want to provide specific items for a specific family, Santa will deliver them; please see "FREE Visits With Santa" for information.
2) We DON'T want food or other perishable items. Should you have those items to donate, please contact Pastor James Dynarski, director of Simple Needs Outreach in South River, at 908-930-2592. You may also reach Pastor James at https://www.facebook.com/tabernaclebaptistsr . Pastor James gives away hundreds of FREE coats, canned food items, toiletries and more to families from our area. There's never a cost or application process and the giveaways happen year-round.
3) We DON'T want used toys for the SHOEBOX GIFT DRIVE. We will gladly accept donations of used toys, but they will be offered for FREE at other public events; people will be able to help themselves. We cannot give away used toys during an event like the Gift Drive without legal disclaimers about product safety, recalls and liability. Thanks for your understanding!
Here are a few notes to help your decision-making process in putting together your shoeboxes:
** If you want to donate Spanish-language (or other language) books or materials, please do so in a donation for a specific family or group, such as a school, church group, daycare, etc so we know that the children who receive the gifts in other languages can get the most enjoyment out of them.
** If any of your shoebox items require batteries, please provide them (if you choose to provide batteries) IN THEIR ORIGINAL PACKAGING, NOT installed in the items themselves. Many of these shoeboxes will be in storage for months at a time and we don't want to risk battery leakage.
Have a question we haven't answered here? Please email us at JollyVisits@gmail.com for more information! Thank You!
At the "dollar store" for a few things? Maybe the little one wants a coloring or activity book... don't buy one, buy two. Put the second one in the shoebox. Same with crayons, markers, colored pencils or whatever.
Buying a "grab bag" item or other small gift for someone's birthday? Buy two.
None of the items in the shoeboxes need be expensive at all. We're suggesting $5 TOTAL, not per item, in each shoebox. We're counting on the kind-hearted people who CAN afford $5 per box so we can give out blessings to those who can't afford Christmas gifts for their children.
The math is simple... if Santa gets 100 people to donate one box a month, 1,100 children will receive free Christmas gifts from us this year. If we get 500 people to donate ONE BOX a month between January 15th and November 30, we'll have 5,500 gifts to give away.
Here are a few things we DON'T want:
1) We DON'T WANT people donating expensive gifts. If you want to provide specific items for a specific family, Santa will deliver them; please see "FREE Visits With Santa" for information.
2) We DON'T want food or other perishable items. Should you have those items to donate, please contact Pastor James Dynarski, director of Simple Needs Outreach in South River, at 908-930-2592. You may also reach Pastor James at https://www.facebook.com/tabernaclebaptistsr . Pastor James gives away hundreds of FREE coats, canned food items, toiletries and more to families from our area. There's never a cost or application process and the giveaways happen year-round.
3) We DON'T want used toys for the SHOEBOX GIFT DRIVE. We will gladly accept donations of used toys, but they will be offered for FREE at other public events; people will be able to help themselves. We cannot give away used toys during an event like the Gift Drive without legal disclaimers about product safety, recalls and liability. Thanks for your understanding!
Here are a few notes to help your decision-making process in putting together your shoeboxes:
** If you want to donate Spanish-language (or other language) books or materials, please do so in a donation for a specific family or group, such as a school, church group, daycare, etc so we know that the children who receive the gifts in other languages can get the most enjoyment out of them.
** If any of your shoebox items require batteries, please provide them (if you choose to provide batteries) IN THEIR ORIGINAL PACKAGING, NOT installed in the items themselves. Many of these shoeboxes will be in storage for months at a time and we don't want to risk battery leakage.
Have a question we haven't answered here? Please email us at JollyVisits@gmail.com for more information! Thank You!
Thursday, January 7, 2016
JollyVisits Shoebox/Gift-Bag Gift Drive
JollyVisits
Shoebox/Gift-Bag
Gift Drive
If you're reading this, you've met Santa Claus. You may always reach Santa at JollyVisits@gmail.com and request FREE home visits, phone calls, photo sessions, email or letters. Read more about FREE visits with Santa in our post, "FREE Visits With Santa".
Christmas is seen as a holiday especially for children; the days off from school, the beauty of fresh snow and the anticipation of long-hoped-for gifts are thrills that countless children look forward to each year.
There are thousands of children in our communities, however, who DON'T see Christmas as a time of joy. They see bright lights, colorful advertisements and even people dressed in well-known costume, all this announcing and cheering the arrival of the most commercial and money-driven season in our country's collective life.
These underprivileged children, many struggling to have even their most basic needs met, see Christmas as a time when their schoolmates and neighbors will send and receive all sorts of expensive gifts, but they will get little or nothing. Mom, Dad and/or their other caregivers won't have money for enough food or warm clothes, let alone for pricey toys and games.
We're going to change that together, you and I.
Beginning January 15th and continuing through November 30, JollyVisits is conducting a "shoebox drive" with the goal of providing 2,500 FREE gifts to the underprivileged children of our communities. Here's how it works:
Find a shoebox (we ask that you use shoeboxes because they'e easier to stack in storage and easier to wrap). Fill it with $5 worth of goodies for a girl, a boy or either. Some suggestions include:
BOYS
Coloring Books
Crayons or Markers
Baseball
Flashlight
Books
GIRLS
Coloring Books
Crayons or Markers
Hair Ties/Scrunchies
Nail Polish
Stickers
EITHER
Solid-color Hats or Gloves (black, blue, etc)
Mints or Hard Candies
Travel Games (Dollar Tree and similar stores often have generic versions of popular travel-sized games)
Puzzles (again, dollar stores usually have lots of varieties of puzzles suitable for a range of ages)
PLEASE fill each box with items totaling ONLY between $5 and $10. You may donate as many boxes as you like, but the goal is as many boxes as we can collect, and we want the distribution to be as fair as possible.
2,500 boxes seems like a lot - but it's easy to see how it can be done!
From January 15 to November 15, eleven months, if 100 people donated ONE box a month, we'd have 1,100 boxes by the time we're ready to deliver them. If those same 100 people donated TWO boxes a month, 2,200 boxes, etc.
We're asking everyone who reads this to consider donating ONE BOX a month at minimum. If we get 500 people to donate one box a month for 11 months, we'll more than DOUBLE our goal of 2,500 boxes for this upcoming Christmas season.
You can wrap your boxes, or give them to us unwrapped; we only ask that you tape the lid shut so they don't spill if they fall over in storage.
There are two different ways that gifts will be distributed:
1) Individual Home Deliveries - if you know of a family with children 12 and under who are struggling financially and can't afford much or anything for Christmas, you may contact us at JollyVisits@gmail.com and give us the address and the number and gender of the children. No personal information is necessary.
2) Group Events - when folks like you recommend a school, church, daycare or other children's group that has underprivileged children, Santa will personally deliver gifts to each child at their location.
Additionally, Santa will be making numerous scheduled (and unscheduled!) public appearances where he will greet children and give away small trinkets. These appearances will be used to inform the public about our Gift Drive.
Santa is available 365 days a year - not just at Christmastime! His presence in the community is our most powerful tool for alerting your friends and neighbors to the needs of the poor children in our communities.
Any questions may be directed to Steve Beisser, Operations Manager at JollyVisits, by reaching him at:
JollyVisits@gmail.com
732-390-0914 office
848-391-4380 cell/text
Thank you for reading! We are grateful for your willingness to partner with Santa to make Christmas a time of joy and happiness for those less fortunate. All the best in this new year!
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