Countdown to Christmas

12/5/09 Seven coats, donated to Coats and Toys for Kids

All credit for today's downsize goes to Joanna.

To kick off the Christmas season, Joanna got us tickets to the Portland Ballet Company's production of the Nutcracker. With that on the itinerary, I told Joanna I should do some sort of holiday-themed give-away.

"Channel 6 is doing a coat drive today," she replied. How does this woman know all this stuff?

This morning we went through our closets and managed to collect seven coats we could live without. Truth is, most of them (okay, all but one of them) belonged to Joanna.

One of the coat drop-off locations was right on our way to the ballet. Local news personality Cindy Williams was in there, and she thanked us profusely for our coats. It's always good to brush elbows with the stars while doing good.

With warmed hearts, we zipped (c'mon, it's pun) off to Merrill Auditorium, where we thoroughly enjoyed the Nutcracker, along with a thousand eight-year-old girls dressed in holiday plaid.

Only twenty giving-away days left until Christmas!

Editor's Note, 8/2/10: I'm still kicking myself for this one. This was my best chance to help the Challenge go viral. There I was, downsizing right in front of one of Maine's most well-known television reporters, and I didn't tell her about the blog. Joanna was nudging me the whole time, but I became the shy sixth grader who could only smile and nod. Ah, what could have been...