give it up.

Even at age 43, I’m still the biggest kid you’ll ever see at Christmas. I love all the presents, and I can’t wait to get to ’em on the various Christmases Mrs. Crappy and I observe.

But as I learned a long time ago, it’s even better to come up with that perfect gift for someone else, and sitting and watching their smiles as they open it are about as much fun as I can possibly have on Christmas day.

We’ve just wrapped up a couple efforts that will bring a lot of smiles, on Christmas and beyond. I told you a while back about Burgh Baby’s push to raise $1,000 so kids at domestic violence shelters would be sure to get a toy for Christmas. Well … she raised $3,000 instead, and was able to load up two shelters with gift cards as well as stuff half a bus full of toys for the annual Kiss 96.1 Stuff-A-Bus toy drive.

I also mentioned Ginny’s drive to raise $10,000 to install a game room at Children’s Hospital. Well … that took less than five days to accomplish; the ticker’s at $10,500, and it’s not showing signs of slowing down.

There’s one more thing we need to look out for, in just a couple of days. On Sunday, Abby will host a party at OTB Bicycle Cafe on Carson; your price of admission is some stuff to help stock a new food pantry serving Oakland. We’ll all be watching the Steelers (yes, even me), eating, drinking and stashing what should be a mountain of food for the pantry. There also will be raffles through the afternoon for those who show up with donations. Abby’s got more details, including a list of stuff the pantry needs, right here.

BB, Ginny and Abby deserve a mountain of credit for putting these things together — all three of those ladies have worked, pushed, begged and prodded everyone they know to get involved. The drives of BB and Ginny paid off big time, and I have all the confidence in the world that Abby’s will as well. I’m proud to know all three, and I’m proud to have helped them out.

Who else deserves a little recognition? You. Me. Everyone who gave a buck or two to BB and Ginny, and everyone who’s going to bring stuff to OTB on Sunday afternoon. These things don’t work unless they have the support of some generous people, and as we’ve seen in the last couple weeks, there is a ton of generosity to go around, in Pittsburgh and beyond. We’ve raised more than $13,000 in a short period of time, to help out the kids in our area; I hope we can do something nearly as impressive to make sure folks in the Oakland area aren’t going hungry.

So. Thanks. To BB. To Ginny. To Abby. And to all of you.

And we’ll see you at OTB Sunday afternoon.