Toronto Woman Asks Facebook to Send 85-Year-Old Mom Christmas Cards So She 'Isn't Forgotten'

— -- A Canadian woman is attempting to lift her mom's holiday spirit by encouraging strangers on Facebook to send the 85-year-old woman Christmas cards, something she has enjoyed receiving for many years.

"My hope when I posted it was maybe 30 friends and cousins will send cards," Jane Gilbert of Toronto told ABC News. "Now I'm thinking a few hundred, but people are telling me I think it's going to be more than that.

"I will be sending her to get the mail every day; I think that’s going to really hit her," she added. "I am really excited."

Gilbert, 51, said her mom, Doreen Gilbert, has loved receiving Christmas cards for as long as she can remember.

"Growing up, we always had tons of cards," Gilbert said. "Back then there wasn’t the Internet or social media, so everybody would send cards and my mom was an avid card-writer. She would hang every single one of them -- on the wall, on the doors; they were everywhere."

Gilbert said her mother would have her and her three siblings make crafts out of them after the holidays were over.

But, as spare time dwindled, so did the number of cards that Doreen received in the mail.

"Last year, she [mom] was saying how few cards she gets now and how so many friends have passed on," Gilbert said. "In the last five years she's lost two sisters, a brother, her brother-in-law and her niece. Last month she buried her last sister."

Gilbert said she was trying to think of something to give her mom a little pick-me-up when she arrived at the idea to ask her Facebook friends to send her Christmas cards. But, to her surprise, her post yielded a larger response than expected.

"I originally did it for my Facebook friends to send her a card, not the whole world," she said, laughing. "But it looks like that could be happening because everyone its sharing it and it's so amazing.

Gilbert's post on Facebook has racked up 287 shares and she said her mom has already received a few cards in the mail.

"...one of her favorite things during the holidays is not the gifts or the food, it's checking the mailbox every day to see if, by chance, there is a Christmas card for her," Gilbert wrote on Facebook. "You can understand that at this stage in your life you want to make sure that you have not been forgotten. So, if you can find it in your heart to send my Mum a card, even if you don't personally know her, it would let her know that she is not forgotten!"

If you'd like to mail Doreen Gilbert a Christmas card, Gilbert is asking people to send to:

Mrs. Doreen Gilbert, Shoppers World Postal Outlet, 3003 Danforth Ave., P.O Box 93586, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4C 5R4