Having fallen on hard times after losing her job, Christina Cox brought two of her three children, 3-year-old twins Harley and Lorie, to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with friend Shawn Conway at Florence’s Manna House.
When a photograph of the family ran in the Morning News on Nov. 28, a group of people, who wish to remain anonymous, called the newspaper and offered to help Santa provide Christmas for Christina and her family.
“I never imagined three years ago that I’d be a single parent, never in a million years,” Cox said on Christmas morning. “It’s been hard to the point where I have wanted to scream, cry and even give up sometimes. But because of (my children), I don’t, because they didn’t ask to be here, and they are my angels from God.”
Cox and her family also have received help from the Salvation Army’s Empty Stocking Fund.
“It means the world to me to know that there are not so many selfish people out there — that somebody took time to not be selfish,” Cox said as her children played with their gifts under the family’s small tabletop tree. “This is the first Christmas I’ve realized that there are people out there that do care.”
The group of more than 15 people collected more than $600 to provide a warm and joyous Christmas for the family of four.
“When you wake up, Santa will have been here,” Cox said as she tucked the girls into their bottom bunk bed.
The twins, who had been sleeping in tiny toddler beds, were given new bunk beds complete with matching princess sheets, comforters and pajamas. In addition to the new bed sets, the girls also received new princess bikes with training wheels, dolls with new strollers and matching place settings for their small kitchen table.
For Cox’s 8-year-old son, Christopher, the group of Santa’s helpers delivered toys, a new trick bike and a Nintendo DS with a monster truck game.
“I’ve wanted one of these for years!” Christopher said as he opened the box containing the new game system. “This is the best Christmas ever!”
The children were not the only ones in the home whom Santa visited. For Cox, there was a new Bible and a $100 gift card to Wal-Mart to help the family with groceries, gasoline and other household needs.
Without the support of Santa’s helpers and the Empty Stocking Fund, “the kids might have, if possible, had one thing each, and it would have been something cheap,” Cox said. “I mean, I’ve always been able to manage before, where it’s a couple things. That way, they can share.
“This is the extra boost — to know that for a bad year, this is one way to end it, because it makes it a lot better.”
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