Christmas Kindness 2011

The past few years during December we have done a fairly traditional 12 days of Christmas. Each day the kids would get a stocking with an activity listed on the back of it. But this year I wanted to do something a bit different. As a family we made a goal to perform AT LEAST 24 random (and a few not so random) acts of kindness or service during the month of December. Now my budget is VERY LIMITED, so we had to come up with things that are free, or fairly inexpensive.

1. Our first event was caroling at a nursing home:

This was on our original list, and then we discovered the Primary was going, so it worked out perfectly!

I am willing to bet that this picture of Eli and Jackson holding hands will embarrass them mightily in 5 years:

2. Write letters to the missionary from our ward serving in Washington state:

I also got my Young Women, and fellow Young Women Leaders involved, so we have a package with 23 letters going out to him this month.

3. I have a special place in my heart for people who ride the bus. I find them admirable. So for our third  ROAK (Random Act Of Kindness), we paid the bus fare for the next two people who would be riding the bus.

4. Although we primarily want to focus on people we don't know, we had the opportunity to make dinner for a dear friend, which brought us our 4th act of service:

5. Donate clothes to Child Haven, which is a children's shelter home in Las Vegas. Click here for information on how to donate.

This act of service earned us an immediate blessing! The kids were rewarded with free candy after donating.

6. Clean up trash around our neighborhood:

Sadie truly excels at trash clean-up. I am quite sure she cleaned up at least twice the amount of Megan and Jackson. If her modeling career doesn't work out, garbage woman could be in her future.

It was just the kids and I (Eric was at work), so I was only able to carry one large trash bag. I expected that it would last us quite a while, but after 45 minutes of work, and only ONE STREET, our trash bag was completely full!

7. Put a quarter in a candy machine for a random child to find. This one was fairly torturous for Jackson. He routinely begs and pleads for quarters for these machines, so it was quite the sacrifice for him to give one up.

We were lucky on this one because we were able to see the outcome. About 5 minutes after putting the quarter in, 2 children came over to inspect the machine. Neither one of them noticed it for quite a while, but finally the older sister turned the crank and was rewarded with a gumball. To say she was excited, would be to put it mildly. She started to scream, jumped up and down, and ran loudly over to her parents to tell them the good news. However, her joy (and ours) was soon tempered by her younger brothers jealous rage over his sisters good fortune. So in the end, we caused a massive amount of joy, followed by a massive amount of family contention. Whoops!

8. Number eight was performed by Jackson while on a trip to Wal-Mart. A fellow shopper dropped a container of shampoo out of his cart, which Jackson promptly picked up for him. After it happened, Jackson ran up to me, took my hand, and joyfully told me he had just performed an act of service all by himself! He is heartbreakingly sweet.

9.  Return errant shopping carts:

Jackson also spear-headed this act of service. Megan quickly joined in.

10. Clean the church.

I am sending out an open invitation to anyone who would like to join my family next Saturday, or the following Saturday, or the following Saturday, to come and clean the church with us. By the end of this year, my family will have had the opportunity to clean the church NINE TIMES. So if you are feeling neglected, come and join us!

11. Arrive at church 15 minutes early to hold doors open for others:

12. Place mormon.org pass along cards into geocaches. Since we are nightmarish geoachers, we had to cheat, and go to geocaches that others told us about.

 

13.  I'm unsure if I should actually count this as service, since there is practically nothing I love more than a newborn, but I am counting it anyway. Sade and I were able to babysit this little 6 week old for a few hours this week. It is a tough call, but Sade may love babies even more than me.

14. While running errands, we have made sure to put money in the Salvation Army buckets anytime we see them:

15. While shopping at Wal-Mart, Eric and I were approached in the parking lot for money by a woman and her child. I was grateful for her approach, and that we had a little money on us.

16. Bring thank you letters and doughnuts to the firefighters.

After ringing the doorbell, and delivering the goods, they invited us in for a tour! Another immediate blessing.

We all agreed the fire trucks looked so much larger than we imagined them to be. Posing with their new hats:

17. Make and distribute kits to the homeless. Our kits included food items, and a warm pair of socks.

Eric kept them in his truck and distributed them to people in need when he saw them.

18. Drop change at a playground for children to find:

19. People that use the laundromat are another group of people I have a soft-spot for. There was a week 10 YEARS AGO, when we were moving from an apartment to our house, that we had to use the laundromat. Only one week! and I gained such an appreciation for those who have to do it on a regular basis. I am so blessed. So for out 19th ROAK (random act of kindness), we went back to the laundromat we used 10 years ago, and left quarters in a number of washing machines:

 

20. At church we drew names of other people in the Ward, and were asked to do an act of service for them. We drew two names. We knew who the first family was, but we had no idea who the second person was. There was no phone number, and no one knew anything about him. We were told we could choose another name, but both Eric and I really felt like we shouldn't. Although we had no phone number, we did have an address. So the kids and I spent one afternoon baking up a lot of different Christmas treats, and then packed them up in a basket to deliver them. That night, after Eric got home, we headed over to his house.  I was a bit nervous, because I had no idea what the reception was going to be. We knocked on the door, and waited. We could hear a woman inside telling him to answer the door, and then we saw her checking us out through the window. Eventually he came to door, at which time we discovered he was mentally disabled. He lives in his house with 3 other men. They all hold down jobs and pay their rent. They have a caseworker (the woman that was looking at us through the window), who spends a lot of time at their house making sure things run smoothly. They warmly invited us in, and we were able to explain who we were. We asked him if he would like to start coming to church, and he enthusiastically responded with "yes"! His caseworker was so helpful, and since he is required to to have someone with him at all times, she is arranging for someone to take him to and from church, and stay with him while he is there.

I'm so grateful we didn't put his name back.

21. Make thank-you letters, and deliver treats to the garbage men. We had been trying to do this one for weeks, but kept missing them. Finally on Wednesday we sat outside and waited. And waited. And waited. And it worked! We caught them. After delivering the cards, and goodies, we went back inside. A little while later, I went back outside, and discovered they had put my garbage can up by my garage. I thought it was so sweet. And......today (Saturday) they did it again!

22. Go Ding Dong Ditching:

My kids, love, love, love to do this. They eagerly await Halloween time so we can Boo other families.

Running back to the car:

23. Leave Christmas greetings, in the form of sticky notes, on random cars:

24. Distribute crayons and coloring books to children:

First we went to the library, but there were no kids there! So we changed our plan and went to the park.

Bonus item:

As we were leaving the park I spied Jackson over by a garbage can. When I looked closer I discovered he was throwing away some garbage he had found on the ground.

When I first proposed this idea, my kids were not excited. They complained. They were especially upset when I told them it was replacing our traditional 12 days of Christmas. But now......They are random acts of kindness and service fanatics. They would wake up talking about what service we were going to do that day, and how many we have already done. It was heartwarming.

 Merry Christmas Eve!

Christmas Kindness - Part 3

We finished our 24 acts of service, just in the St. Nick of time..........

20. At church we drew names of other people in the Ward, and were asked to do an act of service for them. We drew two names. We knew who the first family was, but we had no idea who the second person was. There was no phone number, and no one knew anything about him. We were told we could choose another name, but both Eric and I really felt like we shouldn't. Although we had no phone number, we did have an address. So the kids and I spent one afternoon baking up a lot of different Christmas treats, and then packed them up in a basket to deliver them. That night, after Eric got home, we headed over to his house.  I was a bit nervous, because I had no idea what the reception was going to be. We knocked on the door, and waited. We could hear a woman inside telling him to answer the door, and then we saw her checking us out through the window. Eventually he came to door, at which time we discovered he was mentally disabled. He lives in his house with 3 other men. They all hold down jobs and pay their rent. They have a caseworker (the woman that was looking at us through the window), who spends a lot of time at their house making sure things run smoothly. They warmly invited us in, and we were able to explain who we were. We asked him if he would like to start coming to church, and he enthusiastically responded with "yes"! His caseworker was so helpful, and since he is required to to have someone with him at all times, she is arranging for someone to take him to and from church, and stay with him while he is there.

I'm so grateful we didn't put his name back.

21. Make thank-you letters, and deliver treats to the garbage men. We had been trying to do this one for weeks, but kept missing them. Finally on Wednesday we sat outside and waited. And waited. And waited. And it worked! We caught them. After delivering the cards, and goodies, we went back inside. A little while later, I went back outside, and discovered they had put my garbage can up by my garage. I thought it was so sweet. And......today (Saturday) they did it again!

22. Go Ding Dong Ditching:

My kids, love, love, love to do this. They eagerly await Halloween time so we can Boo other families.

Running back to the car:

23. Leave Christmas greetings, in the form of sticky notes, on random cars:

24. Distribute crayons and coloring books to children:

First we went to the library, but there were no kids there! So we changed our plan and went to the park.

Bonus item:

As we were leaving the park I spied Jackson over by a garbage can. When I looked closer I discovered he was throwing away some garbage he had found on the ground.

 Merry Christmas Eve!

Santa's Village - 2011

Last night we managed to make our annual trek to Santa's Village.

We of course took a number of traditional cardboard cut-out pics:

Santa was there, but not one of my children wanted to go anywhere near him. We did however visit his sleigh:

EEK:

Jackson and Eric imitating the bears. This just may be my favorite picture of the year:

Of course we had to have the traditional hot chocolate and cookie:

Until next year.......

Christmas Happenings....So Far

We have not been doing a whole lot of Christmas activities around these parts. Sure the kids have watched a few Christmas movies, baked a few Christmas snacks, and done their Christmas wrapping, but crafting and field tripping have not happened it great abundance. I can't seem to find the time this year. But here is a re-cap of a bit of what we have been up to.

1. The kids decorated this gingerbread man given to us by a friend:

We have yet to decorate the gingerbread houses I bought.

2. We finally got an Elf on the Shelf! My poor children have been deprived of his presence until this year. I feel a bit of extreme guilt about it, because he has been massive amounts of fun! I didn't realize that the Elves did fun and/or somewhat naughty things at night, but luckily I was on Pinterest and discovered their shenanigans just in time. Our Elf is quite funny. His name is Max Elfis:

Sadie thinks he is beyond hilarious. He has replaced our stockings with underwear:

Toilet papered the Christmas tree:

He enjoys playing dress-up:

He turned our milk green:

Of course make snow angels out of rice:

And most recently drew mustaches on our pictures:

He even made himself a little stache:

I would love to hear about all of your elves also. I fear my elf might run out of fun things to do in the coming years.

3. My kids also participated in a live Nativity we did for the Young Women. Jackson practicing for his part as a Wise Man:

It was a "No room at the inn" object lesson activity, where the girls went to three different homes to carol, and were turned away from each one. We then went to a stable to see a live Nativity acted out by a few children. Sadie was a shepherd:

As previously mentioned, Jackson was a Wise Man:

And Megan was an angel. She was on top of a large hay shed, and had the spotlight shown on her when it was her turn. Sadly I have no pics of it because Eric was helping Jackson, and I was on top of the shed with Megan. But I saw some video, and it looked very cool:

Lastly, we have been eating. A lot.

That's about it. Are you ready for Christmas? Sadly I am not, and have not wrapped one single present yet!