Christmas should be all about spending quality time with family and friends, over good food and drinks, with your favourite jams playing in the background. For some young people living with cancer in New Zealand, this won’t be the reality this year. Some will be having tests, scans and cancer treatments, whilst others may be worrying about or even missing a loved one.
It’s hard to imagine that those things we take for granted, like Christmas, can be changed beyond recognition from one day to the next, but that’s what cancer does. It disrupts. It derails. It doesn’t care. But at CanTeen, we do.
When we heard we were the chosen charity for #NZSecretSanta again, we were super excited. Thanks to the amazing Santas and Elves, we could make Christmas for our members more awesome again this year, without the financial impact that would normally go hand-in-hand. It’s challenging as a charity to give our members that extra special something on every special occasion, but thanks to #NZSecretSanta we didn’t have to worry. The fabulous Elves even arranged for several batches of presents to reach us earlier than planned, so that we could hand them out at our Christmas parties for members across the country, and especially to cheer up our members stuck in hospital.
Seeing the gifts come in along with the beautiful messages of support was truly touching. We’ve also loved seeing all the amazing things the Santas have given each other and written in their CanTeen Christmas cards. Thank you, Elves, and thank you, Santas – you rock!
Lots of Christmas love from everyone at CanTeen x
#nzsecretsanta 