Random acts of kindness

As my boys get older, I love the excitement that builds with Christmas time.  Its fun to watch them understand the joy of giving and receiving presents.  And its the greatest feeling that they are learning to truly celebrate the birth of our Savior!  One of the other qualities I hope to build in them is compassion and thoughtfulness for others.  So we decided to try to find lots of little ways to think of others in December to remind us that there is so much joy in helping and serving and gifting others!

We made a December countdown calendar to keep track of how many days were left until Christmas and tried to think of something kind to do for each day.  Though we probably missed a few, the boys really enjoyed thinking of thoughtful ideas.

The countdown was made with a muffin tin, construction paper numbers that Ben wrote and cut out, attached with little bits of magnet strips.  Inside each muffin tin was 4 m&m's (2 for each boy each day when they took a new number off to count down!)  The boys loved it and it was super easy and cute.

Some of the acts of kindness that the boys enjoyed were coloring a Christmas note for our maillady and giving her a coffee gift card.  Making Christmas cookies for the coworkers at Daddy's work.  And hanging candy canes on the door handles of random cars at the Walmart parking lot.  As a parent its so easy to get caught up in giving my boys everything they will ever need and want and its good to remind them that Jesus has given us so much and there is so much joy in giving to others.  Hopefully we can make some version of this a tradition year after year.