COLUMBIANA, Ohio - For many of us, the holidays are a joyful and wonderful time. They can also be a stressful time though, especially for families who have kids in the Palliative Care Program at Akron Children’s Hospital.

“It’s been a lot of trying to stretch ourselves in order to try and balance everything,” said Michael James.

Michael and Amy James live in Columbiana and have five kids, including twins Riley and Olivia. In October of 2019, Riley and Olivia were born at only 24 weeks. Olivia spent 170 days in the NICU while Riley spent 260 days in the NICU.

“We are working on trying to get Riley to eat orally, so that is our next big hurdle that we have to overcome,” said Amy. “With Riley’s trach and stuff, we have to have one of us or a nurse here awake 24 hours a day so during the beginning when we had very little nursing, we were often pulling split shifts trying to have one of us be able to stay up throughout the night with her.”

Every year, for the past six years, the Hirschbeck family, through their Magic of Michael Foundation, provide Christmas for five families in the Akron Children’s Palliative Care Program. This year, the James family was selected.

“They were very excited, we didn’t tell them about it ahead of time, they were just surprised with all these presents coming in the door,” Amy said.

Braden’s eyes lit up when he opened a Polar Express train.

“Braden has been asking for that Polar Express train for about four years now,” Amy said. “We actually moved to Columbiana because he loves trains so much and he used to come down here with my parents to watch the trains so he is going to be ecstatic playing with that train for the next, I don’t even know how long, we probably won’t be able to get him to go to bed.”

The Christmas surprise couldn’t have come at a better time for the James family.

“I work in the oil and gas industry and we’ve been hit hard and it’s been a rougher year as far as financially goes so to especially have something like this at the end of the year to kind of alleviate some of the stress off of us, it’s been nice,” Michael said.

Normally, a Christmas party is held at Akron Children’s with every member of the family getting presents, including Mom and Dad. This year was a little different because of the pandemic. A staff member of Akron Children’s dropped off the presents to each house. The James family allowed 21 News to capture their special moment while John and Denise Hirschbeck watched via Zoom.

“It makes you feel good to give something back and help Akron Children’s Hospital and to watch the families, it really is a special treat,” said John Hirschbeck.

Denise Hirschbeck did all of the shopping and wrapping and says it’s really neat because she feels like she gets to know the families because of what they put on their Christmas list.

“One of the families had a lot of birthdays around the holidays now and then Christmas coming up and didn’t know how she was going to do both, so I think we eased her burden a little bit,” Denise said.

The James family says it’s incredible to see an organization that is still out there helping families who are struggling during difficult times and just want to say thank you.

“We are so grateful to the foundation, the Hirschbeck’s, they don’t have to do this, but we are so grateful, we appreciate it so much,” Michael and Amy said.