My best Christmas memories are from my years as one of Santa’s elves at Tiddlywinks Toys.

What a special experience to assist children and parents as we helped Santa. It was a magical time for the Toy Testers (that’s what we were called) to be sneaky little elves.

Every Christmas we had to undo a trike or play kitchen because the assembly instructions included a picture of the parts and then a picture of the finished product, but nothing in between.

To this day when we have a Toy Tester reunion we laugh until we cry (like we did then) because it was so much fun, and the Toy Testers are still a family to this day.

Not a week goes by that I don’t run into a mom, grandmother or child (now grown) who shopped with us and who remembers the joy we had.

It was much more than a retail adventure, it was a ministry, and we were all blessed by the experience.

Robin Bowers is executive director of Mission Lexington which aids families in crises.