12 Days of Kindness Ideas

12 Days of Kindness

A few weeks ago my ten-year-old stayed home from school because she wasn’t feeling well, the two of us sat and watched HGTV while she guzzled down cups of green tea. I folded clothes and blog planned while I sat with her watching a Love It or List It marathon in the early afternoon. While I was blog planning she turned to me and said,  “What if you do 12 Days of Kindness? I think that would be a great idea not only for us, but for your blog friends to spread some holiday cheer, too.” Umm… that’s a genius idea, my little love bug! She then started listing a few good ideas. Some of the ideas she listed were things we have already done in the past and some are ideas we want to do this season, especially #7.  I was going to do this as a daily post, but I decided I better condense this into 1 post, so you can get planning for the next 12 days. 🙂

1. Make a simple DIY sugar scrub for your postal carrier and leave them a thank you note.

 

2. Who doesn’t love cookies? Consider baking a fresh batch of cookies for co-workers or your children’s teachers. Add some tags with ribbons or twine wrapped around cookie boxes.

3. Have your children pick out a toy to donate to a local toy drive.

4. Fill stockings and deliver them to a local women’s shelter. I loved this sweet idea Tamara and her sweet daughter, Scarlet, came up with.

5. Be a candy cane elf!

When we moved to South Carolina we had to spend our 1st Christmas in a small apartment (corporate housing), we made the best of it. We decided to spread some holiday cheer by putting candy canes on all the apartments in our building. The kids LOVED doing this. 🙂

source

6. Fill those kettles!!

Have your kiddos go on a scavenger hunt for loose change and let them fill the kettles to help The Salvation Army.

7. What can I say we’reRedbox lovers, how about handing out hot cocoa and a Redbox promo code.  🙂

I’m about to take my daughter to go handout popcorn & Redbox promo codes for her Pay It Forward Project for school. We decided today was the best day to complete it. ? #worldkindnessday #RandomAOK

A photo posted by Mrs.AOK (@mrs_aok) on Nov 13, 2015 at 2:55pm PST

You can usually find codes for Redbox through deal sites or if you sign up for their texts and emails.

Did you see the printables we made for our Random Acts of Kindness day + Redbox? We made some more for the holidays 🙂

 

8. Happy Mail!

Send holiday cards (invite link) to friends and family with meaningful messages. I love when the holiday cards come rolling in.

 

(Tiny Prints offer ) Affiliate Link

 

9. Fill a bag full of groceries and take them to the food pantry. Wednesday night, after my son’s concert, we went to the grocery store.  When we got there, there was a group of kids freezing outside of the Safeway taking food collections for the local food pantry. We took their list and gave it to our kids, we let the kids pick a few items, they filled a bag. It didn’t cost us much, baby food, peanut butter, jelly, cereal, tuna, stuff like that.  You may also want to donate your time helping at a food drive. Many schools have signups for kids to donate their time. I’m going to be a proud mama right now, my daughter (13) was a food drive helper yesterday and I couldn’t be more happy that she is sharing her time helping others. 🙂

10. Take care of you.

I know many of us work every day to make life better for others, but the best way to do that is to take care of ourselves. I am going to admit something that I’m honestly quite ashamed of, but it’s the truth, and I keep it real here: I haven’t had a check up in over a year. I’ve been to the doctor, but I haven’t had a full check-up, and that’s actually unlike me. With the moves and my new doctor leaving, I just dropped the ball. I’m vigilant when it comes to my kids’ health as well as my husband’s health, but I need to do the same for me.

Being proactive when it comes to our health can be a lifesaver!

This is where I want to introduce you to the lovely and incredibly strong Heather Von St. James. Heather is a survivor! 10 years cancer free! 🙂  Heather wasn’t feeling like herself, her breathing was short, she felt tired, she could’ve chalked it up to being a new mom, but she didn’t. Heather was proactive with her health, instead of waiting things out she went to see her doctor. After numerous tests, she was given a grim diagnosis. She was told, “do nothing, you’ll have 15 months” 15 MONTHS! Her daughter wasn’t even a year old. She decided to do something (she was also told treatment may only give her 5 years), but with advancements, great doctors, hope, and experimental procedures, we have Heather. She was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma, because she was in contact with asbestos, from her father’s work jacket. I encourage you to read all 7 parts of Heather’s POWERFUL story AND MAKE AN APPOINTMENT! That’s on my to do list. Thank you, Heather.

 

I hope  you will spread some holiday cheer!

Happy Holidays!! XOXO

**If you would like to print the printables just click on them and print. If you have any problems, you can email me and I’ll send them to you. 🙂 xo

Would you like some more ideas? You can find more ideas for acts of kindness here.

 

*This post contains affiliate links.