Lottery wrap-up and a thank-you

The Fall Lottery is now over, and all the winners have been contacted. Whew!

We had a record number of participants this time around. I also received a lot of comments, both with the entries and afterwards, about how much people appreciate the lottery system.

Recently lotteries have used more high-tech methods, but when I started the names were literally drawn from a hat. I would write the names on bits of paper, and then have my son pull one out. The first time we did this, I had the entries for each horse in a separate plastic cup, which I would pour into the hat when it was time to get a name. My son - who was probably about five at the time - would pull out a name and read it, and then dump the rest of the papers on the floor so we could fill the hat for the next horse. When it was all done, I had the half-dozen or so names laid out and he asked what we did next. I told him I was going to call these people and tell them they each got a horse. He then looked over at the (now rather large!) pile of papers that he had been dumping out each time, and asked "And now what do these people get?" I explained that this time around, they hadn't won anything. "They don't get anything?" I explained that no, not this time. "But Mom, do you think that's really FAIR?" He pestered me for days about how I was going to make it up to all those people! "You can't just let them be sad," he told me.

That's always stuck with me, each time I do the lottery. So I really do appreciate how gracious everyone is about the odds, and about not having their name pulled yet again. I really do have wonderful customers!

And now I will get back to work. I have so many things planned for the holiday season and beyond!