Christmas with three kids in a weekly rate hotel.

Lisa Anthony never imagined it would happen to her, because she has a full-time job as an administrative assistant.

But the economic downturn has tumbled dominos in unexpected ways, so there came a morning in September when she was shocked to learn a bank was foreclosing on her landlord.

Within two days, she was evicted and found herself among Charlotte's growing number of homeless families.

Now, Anthony is paying over $200 a week to live in a lodge on Wilkinson Boulevard, and facing the prospect of waking up in a hotel on Christmas morning with three children (ages 5, 12 and 20), one queen-sized bed and a bathroom with no door lock.

"A very crowded hotel room," Anthony says, laughing. "There's no place to go. I sleep in the bed with the two youngest, and the oldest sleeps on the floor."

The bright spot in all this turmoil is that there will be toys on Christmas for the two youngest children.

They are among 13,701 area children being helped by the Salvation Army's Christmas Bureau, a volunteer-driven program that provides Christmas gifts for low-income families in the community. In all, 7,000 families registered for help this year.

"My 5-year-old thinks Santa is going to show up at the hotel room," says Anthony, 45, who is raising the children her own. "But I think they may realize that the best thing about this Christmas was that we were all together. My mother died when I was 7, and Christmas was never as happy without her."

If all goes well, the children may look back on this as a funny memory, she says.

Anthony says she has a new rental house lined up in northwest Charlotte, but red tape could keep her from moving in until after Christmas.

They lived in their last house for six years, she says. That changed on a Tuesday morning in September when she got up to find a note on the door, telling her to be out by Thursday. Anthony says she was not behind on her rent and had no idea anything was wrong.

She took off from work the next day, moved as much furniture as she could into storage and put the rest at the curb, including her artificial Christmas tree and all her ornaments. She declined to move in with friends, not wanting to be an imposition.

"My main concern was the kids. I had no where to go and only a couple of days notice, so I had to do what I had to do," she says. "I've stayed strong, so they wouldn't know that something is really wrong."

It's a good sign, she says, that they're all worked up about Christmas coming.

And that they believe Santa will find them no matter where they live.