Beth told Milly, and Milly told me, and I pondered how we could make it work for our family this Christmas season.
The idea...
25 days of blessing... each year leading up to the Big Day... 25 large or small, acts of kindness.
I love traditions... but sometimes I try to accomplish an over load of ideas that come my way, that I find myself failing in the carrying out of these traditions. So we tweaked it a bit to make this years "25 Days of Blessing," into something that we could for sure follow through with.
So we sat down... the kids and I cozy on the couch... we talked about blessings, what they were, and how we could specifically bless others...
Siah told me about a girl in his Sunday School class that hadn't been there in awhile... "I can write her a letter and tell her that I miss her," he looked at me expectantly wondering if his idea was worthy of doing?
"Perfect!" I declared, "That will be day #1 for blessing others!"
We chatted for awhile and came up with our list of 6 more acts of kindness that we could all do together as a family.
#2 Blessing Box... each year the kids go through their own toys and pick things that they would like to share with other kids that might not have as much as they have...
#3 A meal delivered to a family... the mom had surgery... the son broke his ankle... a simple way to encourage.
#4 Angel Tree... We picked an ornament off the tree at church... "Little boy, Age 5, needs a new pair of Jeans." We took our kiddos to Old Navy and had them pick out the jeans themselves. They "helped"us wrap them up and made a card for the little boy.
#5 Invite a new couple from church over that doesn't know that many people yet.
#6 Make cookies for our new neighbors and make sure they know that our home is always open to them. :)
#7 Each member of our family writes letters to each other of all the things we like about one another. This was fun! Well, at least Siah and I had fun! (Halee cried because she didn't know how to write the letters.) I love the letter he wrote for Halee. It also made me realize how much he has learned already this year. He's writing so well... At least I think he is. :)
We had an awesome week of blessing others together as a family. My hope is that each year we can add in a few more days as the kids get a bit older and a bit more independent.
This week was by far, one of my most favorite weeks of the whole year. :)