Canisius College

Living in a house of nine kids is always interesting but it’s just plain insanity during the holiday season!  It’s been nice to be home these last few weeks.  I live here in Buffalo, so I’m not too far when I’m in the dorms at Canisius, but it’s still very different from actually being here night and day.  I’m the oldest of all my eight siblings meaning I am the first to go to college…SO many questions were asked!  The littlest ones, Mia and Teresa followed me everywhere for about a week.  It was kind of fun having two little shadows always behind me. 

Here I am squished between my brothers and sister - John, Joey and Mia

Because there are so many kids in my family, my parents came up with a simpler idea for giving away gifts.  Buying a gift from each child to each of the other children would probably cost about $7,000, which we do not have!  So right before Advent every year we put everyone’s name in a bowl.  Then at dinner we pass the bowl around and each kid picks a name from the bowl.  The name we get is the person we will buy a Christmas gift for.  Obviously, its really my parents paying for the most part, but the idea is that each child gets to pick out the gift for the sibling that they chose.  We do the same for our extended family as well.  This year, I got my Dad and one of my aunts, which was PERFECT.  I knew exactly what to get my Dad: a Sabres t-shirt.  As for my aunt, I wasn’t to sure on what to get her.  Therefore I went to find the safest gift possible at the outlet ran to by men of all ages when trying to find a gift for a woman- Bath & Body Works.  In the end, both my Dad and aunt loved their gifts!

It is apparent that I am a 90’s child because all I really wanted for Christmas this year was the new Backstreet Boy’s CD.  Although I sadly did not receive it, I did get enough money in target gift cards to go out and buy it for myself!  You can bet that’s where half of my vacation went to.

As cheesy as it sounds, one of my favorite part of my vacation, was when I volunteered at St. Luke’s Mission of Mercy on the East side of Buffalo.  My parents are both missionaries there, or in other words, they devote themselves to helping out the needy and keeping the mission running smoothly.  As you can assume, I am there a lot.  The best time to volunteer is over the holiday season.  There is always plenty to do.  Every year, I help out with the gift give-away.  This year, my boyfriend Matt and I went with my parents to the church at night and helped to organize the gifts for their delivery the next afternoon.  This was Matt’s first year being a part of the rush, and he was definitely exhausted afterwards, but I’m pretty sure that he got a lot out of it and that he enjoyed it as much as I always do.  Helping to bring gifts and smiles to kids on Christmas day who otherwise wouldn’t have it makes me feel like I’m doing something good for the world.  And isn’t that what Christmas is really about?

Tyrell and me.  Tyrell is a little boy who lives off of the mission.

I hope everyone had as wonderful and fulfilling Christmas vacation as I did. Cant wait to be back!  See you all soon :]

~Emily

Emily's September 2007 Journal
Emily's November 2007 Journal