We have a lot of “traditional” traditions. We bake cookies. We make chex mix. We drink hot chocolate and watch Santa Claus: The Movie on Christmas Eve. We sing Christmas songs. We put flannel sheets on (okay, that more of a winter necessity). We decorate a beautiful tree.
But the last year we’ve started a couple of new traditions. One is that we do not buy many (if any) Christmas presents for each other within my immediate family. Instead we pick a “Christmas Angel” from http://angel.jcpenney.com/angeltree/ and go shopping for a child or two. Last year we wrote stories about who we imagine these people to be and read them on Christmas morning in lieu of opening a million presents. It’s amazing and I love this new tradition. It’s fun to shop for kids who really need it. It’s awesome knowing that somewhere on Christmas morning, children are experiencing a brighter day because of my family. I highly recommend this.
Last year (and I’m kinda letting out a BIG SECRET here, but I want to pass the idea on) we did something called “Random Acts of Kindness”… I made up cards and my Mom, Casey, and I went about spreading holiday cheer. We sent random people flowers (I literally picked people out of a phone book and sent them flowers). We paid for tolls for the people behind us (and had the toll booth people give the next person a card that said “You’ve Been Hit By a Random Act of Kindness! Pass it on!”) We paid for people’s coffee behind us. We walked up main street and filled parking meters that were about to expire. I mailed out Dunkin Donut gift cards to people I picked out of a phone book. We bought Andes mints and put them in random people’s mailboxes. This was the most awesomest adventure EVER. We all giggled nearly every day about the surprised responses we saw, the imagined responses of people just receiving these random gifts in the mail. In all, over the month of Decemeber we committed over 100 random acts of kindness. It was SO much fun. Again, I highly recommend this.
Happy Holidays, everyone! Let the spreading of joy begin!
I love it! LOVE it!
Love these ideas!! My extended family adopted a family a few years ago and it was one of the best things I think we've ever done together. But I truly love the random acts of kindness idea – genius 🙂
Dude — someone sent me petit fours last year and I have NO idea who. Maybe someone else did a random act of kindness on me!!! 🙂
@Sarah & Tricia- thanks!!! We have so much fun doing it.
@Kris- maybe someone did 😉
~jenn
Love the random act thing! I'll have to try it.
You are amazing! I love love the random act of kindness! I think I will have to speak to my husband about that and implement it in our holiday tradition!! Thanks for sharing your story!!! 🙂
Jenn – I just printed out my Random Acts of Kindness cards – getting ready to start putting them to use and Angel shopping starts tomorrow too. Should be a great Monday. And, two posts in one day – now that was a random act of kindness.
I LOVE the random acts of kindness idea. Brilliant. I think I will do one every day in Dec. You are an inspiration! I adore you more and more, every day.
Wow! I LOVE these ideas 🙂 I'm not sure if I could get my whole family organized to do this, but I definitely would like to try it myself. 🙂 Great idea.
I love your tree!! 🙂 Thanks for the pic! Also, I love your RACK ideas! (Random ACts of Kindness…RACK…I've seen someone write their cards that said "You have been RACK'ed") 🙂
Ooo I reallyreally like that last idea 🙂 We might try something like that since we're looking for lots of new traditions this year. Moving thousands of miles away from your family sends you scrambling for new ideas to fill in the gaps 🙁
I love your traditions!
Those all are some really great traditions! I love the idea of random act of kindness! We need more of that in our world for sure!