"Yay, at least we have got food."

What is it like for those who get a City Mission Christmas food parcel? We asked two young mums who had Christmas food parcels from us last year to let us know so we can pass it on to our generous donors.

Many families in our community would be going without this Christmas if it wasn’t for our donors.

Names and some details have been changed to protect privacy, but the women talked bravely and honestly about what it is like to not have enough when everyone else is celebrating with excess.

The pair came to the Mission together last Christmas in Wendy’s car. Milly had lost her car in the middle of what she called “a hard ass week from hell”.

Milly was facing Christmas alone with three children, including a new-born, she was crazy with stress and a lot of that was caused by worry about her kids when she had nothing to give.

“My kids were hearing about Santa from the other kids at school, saying how they were going to get all these great presents and have a big feast.” The trip to our foodbank gave her one badly needed lift at a tough time.

The food parcel gave them a feast too. “That was the first ham I ever had in my own house. I loved to have a real ham on my table.”

There was another amazing twist. Milly had a small tree but hadn’t put it up because she had no decorations. Somehow some decorations had got into her food parcel as an extra gift so at the last moment she put her tree up and suddenly the house felt happier and more festive.

“It was like a real crazy time, and the food parcel was so helpful. I was definitely grateful in that stressful time. In the middle of that week this food parcel was a gift for me, I felt like that was my present from, you know.”

Wendy says without her food parcel Christmas Day would have been like any other day for her large family, but she might have found a small cake or something for the family to share.

Instead, the food parcel with its chicken and ham had meant they could have an “extravagant” roast dinner, she says.

“It made a huge difference. The kids loved it when I unpacked it and they got all excited and just wanted to eat everything. Seeing the joy on their faces was so good. And it had these little treats like chocolate that the kids don’t normally get.”

“Even for me, it was like opening a present as an adult and thinking ooh what have we got?” Wendy says she is shy and doesn’t like to ask for help but to be helped in this way was huge. The gift for her was being able to relax a little about Christmas and think “yay at least we have got food”.

“You guys make a huge difference, especially at Christmas. It’s more than you know, more than you know,” she says.