Kindness Advent

I’ve always had the best of intentions to do advent and until last year it never happened…at all.  But last year was different.  And it was good.  After seeing this pin on Pinterest about Random Acts of Kindness, I knew this would be a new Kelley tradition and we would do it fully and we would do it well.  It made my heart happy and I felt like it set the focus for our family in a season that is full to the brim of hustle and bustle.  So began our kindness advent.  We made a list and set out to do one act of kindness everyday in December leading up to Christmas.

Here’s how we did ours from last year…pulled from THIS POST)…ignore the not-so-great-pictures, I was working with a broken camera:)

**I don’t have a lot of room in our house, so I needed an advent that would not take up much space.  I decided on envelopes and today Harper and I made our official advent envelopes.  Here were our supplies:

Glue sticks, small clips, small paper bags (Hobby Lobby), number stickers, plain paper and patterned paper.

First we covered the front of bags with some patterned paper.

Then we cut out some small circles and added number stickers and then glued the circles to the front of the bags.  Josh and I had brainstormed earlier this week, so I re-wrote our ideas on individual pieces of paper.  I had to modify the original ideas because of the 3 small Kelleys.  Let’s face it…we would be a disaster trying to load someones groceries into their car…they may even pay us to leave them alone 🙂

Harper stuffed the envelopes.

Then I hung up our ribbon and attached the envelopes with the small clips.  Easy cheesy.

So that was last year.  This year I wanted to do a little something different because I want to leave up our thankful leaves until Christmas cards start rolling in.

So I bought these cheap little wire hanger things on Pick Your Plum and just clipped all my envelopes to them instead.  Super easy.

Sidenote:  If you do Pick Your Plum deals, go in with a friend and save on shipping.  Courtney and I are notorious Pick Your Plum groupies and it saves us money.  Insert fist bump here.

Here’s a list of lots of different options for your own Kindness Advent.

*Cupcakes to bank  *Leave encouraging notes or gift cards on cars  *Volunteer your time

*Buy someone’s breakfast/lunch/dinner  *Send flowers or giveaway flowers

*Doughnuts to school  *Take balloons and/or treats to hospital

*Pump someone’s gas  *Go caroling  *Carepacks for homeless  *Feed parking meters

*Leave a big tip  *Anonymous chalk art or door hangers  *Food gift cards for homeless

*Give gift card to shopper or leave in shopping carts  *Gift cards for single parent

*Birthday/Christmas bag drop *Make & leave bookmarks at library or bookstore

*Hide $1 bills at Dollar Tree  *Over pay for Contributor newspaper

*Sticky notes on public bathroom mirror  *Treat for Salvation Army bell ringer

*Donations to Crisis Pregnancy Center  *Tip drive-thru worker

*Muffins to pediatricians office  *Hold the door for shoppers  *Decorate someone’s porch or mailbox

*Leave change at laundromat  *Return shopping carts from parking lot

*Tape change to vending machine or bubble gum machines

*Pay strangers over due fees at library  *Gift wrap presents for free

*Treats for library workers  *Help a family for Christmas  *Do free yard work for someone

*Bag of groceries with recipes to a family  *Pass out candy canes  *Paint rocks and leave for others to find

*Popcorn, candy & movie rental bucket to a family *Babysit for couple/single parent

*Handmade cards to nursing home  *Pay for someone’s Santa picture

*Giveaway balloons/stickers/books to kids shopping w/parents

*Treat for mailman, post office workers, trash collector and/or police & fire station

*School supply donations to a classroom  *Bring up neighbors trash can

*Gift or flowers for custodian at school  *Give genuine compliments

*Card for loved one  *Pay for car behind you in drive thru line

*Mail handwritten letters of encouragement  *Pick up trash

*Coffee for people waiting for bus or outdoor workers  *Donate blood

*Treat for bus driver  *Donate non perishables to food pantry

*Gift card for all night gas station/store worker  *Share Sonic happy hour

*Leave surprises at playground (Coins, small toys, filled Easter eggs)  *Read to a classroom

Like last year, I will be documenting each day of our acts of kindness.  I cannot wait.  The kids are getting excited.  This year took a little more planning since Harper is in school and I wanted her to still be able to participate, but I think we took care of everything and planned well.  I hope you will join us.  It’s going to be fun.  Tis’ the season for kindness…you know you want to do it too.

Happy Wednesday.

27 Comments

  1. I love this idea! I had to laugh about the library fee. I have a $28 library fee because we lost a book! I hope your stranger doesn’t have a high fee like that! 🙂 haha These are great ideas. I especially love the simple ones, like holding the door for shoppers. Simple kindness goes such a long way these days.

  2. you inspired me to do this last year– we didn’t do all 25 days… but my kids still remember buying hot chocolate for the bell ringers– that was my favorite– and we’ll do a version of it this year as well– we are also doing the Jesse tree– another advent devotion– and you would ROCK it with the homemade ornaments– you can see them on my blog.. also– here are a few books for you- i LOVE books.. love ’em… “The Best Christmas pageant Ever” by Barbara Robinson– love love love– Harper might be old enough to enjoy it. There are several Jesse tree advent books– , “The Advent Storybook- 24 Stories to share before Christmas” your 3 kiddos would love this one. and then there’s the trilogy by Arnold Ytreeide– “Jotham’s Journey” “Bartholamew’s Passage” and “Tabitha’s Travels”– Harper MIGHT be old enough for them– you do 1 each year– they are intense– lots of action– bad guys, etc– but awesome advent devotion stories–

    that’s all I got:)

  3. I so wish I had thought of something lie this when my children were small! You so inspire me to be a better person!!!!!!!!

  4. You have inspired our house to do this as well. I am super excited about doing it this year. Two of my favorite things on our list is to take handmade cards to residents at our local nursing home and to make and leave bookmarks at the library. Thanks for the inspiration!

  5. Another idea might be to take baked goods to your (or any) auto repair place – I know I have my car in the shop more often than I would like, but I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if they didn’t do such a good job on it! Since I actually have an oven this year (new apartment), I might just do that…

  6. You’ve inspired me to do something similar! Since my birthday is in December, we’re rolling the birthday kindness into Christmas kindness… just lots of kindness here! We’re also going to take goodies to the fine folks at our local Hobby Lobby! They work hard and are always happy and well, I love Hobby Lobby! 🙂 Thanks so much for the ideas and keeping the main thing, the main thing!

  7. You inspired our family to start this last year and we are super excited to do it again in 2012. One of our favorites last year was giving away a copy of a favorite Christmas book. Our current favorite is “The Crippled Lamb” by Max Lucado. Can’t wait to see what your family does this year!!!

  8. My kids are sooooooo excited to do this. We did it last year, but only 5 days. This year we are doing it all month! Thanks for inspiring others and all of the great ideas 🙂

  9. I just want to say thanks:). I looked for years for ideas of what to do for Advent with my kids. When I saw your blog last year I immediately started planning our random acts of kindness. My kids absolutely loved it & we all look forward to doing it again this year!

  10. How about delivering cards to dr’s office for chemo patients?
    I know your kids could create enough beauty in cards to lighten some people’s day during a stressful time!

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Trackbacks

  1. […] like our Kindness Advent to further help us keep the main focus on what Christmas is all about.  I also saw this pin on […]

  2. I Like Today says:

    […] working on narrowing down our Kindness Advent for December.  I like to change things up a bit each year, but there are always favorites which […]

  3. […] Sunday…December 1…25 acts of kindness leading up to Christmas.  You can read about it HERE along with lots of […]

  4. […] as much as I loved the Christmas Fun calendar I think a Random  Acts of Kindness calendar would be even […]

  5. […] and I’ve been inspired by Kindness Advent campaigns by Laura Kelley of Pitter Patter Art (here and here and here) so I’m going to see if we can pull off our own “A-Team […]

  6. […] it is only September and no my Christmas tree is not already up, but every year when we start our Kindness Advent I get lots and lots of emails and questions and inquiries about how we afford doing a […]

  7. […] finally, for me the holy grail of giving would be a Kindness Advent like the one the Kelly family at Pitter Patter Art does each year. The family’s main […]

  8. […] as much as I loved the Christmas Fun calendar I think a Random  Acts of Kindness calendar would be even […]

  9. […] number 6.  Wowzers.  I can hardly believe this is our 6th year doing our kindness advent.  This weekend we sat down and decided on all our activities and when everything would happen […]

  10. 7 Things says:

    […] off our 7th year of our kindness advent.  You can see a good re-cap post from our original year HERE or you can see last year’s post HERE or you can use the search bar to your right and search […]

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