Take a break from Christmas craziness and watch CBS’ 11th annual Home for the Holidays special tonight at 8 pm, 7 Central.
As Reba McIntyre (who will perform tonight) says, love is the true meaning of Christmas. Take a few minutes and get inspired. Other music performers include Mary J. Blige, Carrie Underwood, and Shakira. Songs will include both those that relate to themes of love and family as well as traditional holiday carols. The show will again be hosted by adoptee Faith Hill.
CBS says that stories of adopted children and their parents will be the main part of the show. The show also makes known the situation of some of the nearly 130,000 children who wait in the U.S. foster care system.
The show is credited with inspiring 1100 adoptions in the past decade, an average of 110 adoptions per show.
I plan to watch the show, although I will not have my younger adopted daughters watch with me. I don’t want them to feel like the adoptees had to be “put up” on display and beg for someone to take them. Actually, the show is careful to maintain confidentiality, and the segments on children who need homes are focused on their lives and interests. (I wrote here about my impressions of watching the show two years ago.)
It is necessary to put a face on the statistics so that people can begin to imagine adoption from foster care as a possibility. Often people who start out looking for a healthy infant gradually spend time with adoptive families and realize that they can parent an older child or sibling group.
Anna, a previous Families adoption blogger, wrote a blog on watching a previous Home for the Holidays show with her adopted daughter. You can read about her positive experience and opinion by clicking here.
Asked what she would like viewers to come away with after this show, emcee Hill replied,
“I pray that they leave the show knowing that it is possible for them to have a child, that these children just need love and homes.”
Please see this related blog:
The Campaign to Encourage Adoption of Teens from Foster Care