Parents raising someone else's children is the big trend this year among the 7,000 families who've asked for help from the Salvation Army's Christmas Bureau.

It's how La'Vail Watson, 32, was raised.

But she vows it won't happen to her two boys, ages 7 and 10, no matter how many part-time jobs she has to take to keep them under one roof. Currently, that includes washing cars.

Watson is counting on the Christmas Bureau to provide toys to her children this year, as she searches for a full-time job. The bureau expects to buy toys for 13,701 children this year, using money from the Observer's Empty Stocking Fund.

"I'm going through a hard time now, but I feel my children are blessed to have a mother still with them," says Watson.

"My grandmother was an angel, raising me without her knowing how to read or write. But there were so many times that I needed a mother and father, like at my high school graduation. Not a single person showed up."

Her father had a valid reason for not being there. He's in prison in Salisbury, serving a life sentence.

As for her mother, Watson says she was 21 when they first met, despite living less than a mile apart. "My life would make a good book," says Watson.

A lot of secrets have come unraveled in recent years, Watson says, including the fact that her parents were both younger than 15 when she was born.

That explains a lot, but still doesn't ease the nagging feeling that she was cheated out of something most people take for granted.

Her two boys, Mikail and Datoine, don't know the ugly details, and she may never tell them.

The greatest gift of all at Christmas, she believes, is the way parents wrap their children in a blanket of innocence.

She has a script for the holiday and plans to stick to it.

Mikail and Datoine will wake up to hugs and kisses, and toys from Santa, thanks to the Christmas Bureau.

They'll play games, eat a big meal and dance around, which is what they always do to make their mother laugh.

And they'll do it all never realizing that the best gift they got was the mother who sat watching them the entire day.