Thanksgiving has yet to pass but the Christmas spirit is beaming on the Central Coast.
It's called Breaking & Entering Christmas and the idea is to bring joy and support to struggling families by providing them with necessities and nice-to-haves during the holiday season.
Those include presents, a decorated tree, money and gift cards, and much more.
The 11th annual event is organized in part by local broadcaster and TEDx speaker Adam Montiel.
The community-oriented event relies on nominations from locals. The selected family among nominees gets to stay anonymous throughout the entire process.
Montiel explained why the event is named what it is.
"We've seen a lot of things over the last 11 years," Montiel said of the families who are normally selected, including one where the parent was a year into a stage-four cancer diagnosis. "With the help of the person who nominates that family, we get into [the nominated family's] house when they have no idea and ... leave the magic and spirit of Christmas behind."
Montiel said there are multiple ways to get involved, including donating gifts, wrapping paper, and even lights. There are opportunities to join the Breaking & Entering team, too, he said.
"This is the one thing that connected me with that magic of Christmas that I felt when I was a kid," Montiel said. "And as an adult, you seemingly long for those feelings of Christmas when you were a kid — and this is a way to capture that."
If you know of a family in need this Christmas, you can nominate them on Adam Montiel's website detailing Breaking & Entering Christmas.
"If you know of a family that by any and all accounts things have been super tough for them this year," Montiel said. "We want to know that family."
