A few weeks ago, I started seeing Advent calendars popping up in preparation for the beginning of the Advent season. I didn’t grow up celebrating Advent with little presents for every day, so that tradition is just not something I have strong ties to. A couple of years ago, Ben convinced me to get him the Lego Advent calendar, in which you pop open a new Lego piece every day. I didn’t really like that, because uhh…do we need another reason to get them more stuff?!? But when I saw someone share the idea of an Advent Kindness calendar I was intrigued. The concept is that every day, instead of unwrapping a new gift for ourselves, we would have a kindness challenge waiting for us. I liked it. The family was all for it too, so off we went.
We created the list of ideas from internet research as well as our own. The chalkboard wall in the garage was looking kind of sad, so we posted the calendar up there. Every day starting on December 1, we can see what the task at hand is.
Here are the 24 things we chose for our first go around at an Advent kindness calendar. Some of them are specific to us, but feel free to borrow any of them if you decide to do something similar. I am sure we will learn some lessons along the way on how to do it better each year.
- Mail a card or a letter (as a surprise to someone)
- Pick up 5 pieces of litter
- Compliment 3 people
- Leave a happy note to be found
- Donate coats & new socks
- Candy cane bomb a parking lot
- Make a new friend
- Buy Kona Ice for a classmate (who forgot their money)
- Smile at 5 people
- Feed parking meters (downtown)
- Fulfill an angel tree request
- Donate a bag of food to Brother’s Keeper
- Clean up after church
- Do something without being asked
- Ring bell for the Salvation Army
- Bring a thank you letter to our local Publix
- Leave a surprise at the Little Free Library
- Bring a treat to our teachers
- Pray for peace
- Pay for the person behind us at the drive-thru
- Leave a treat for our mailman
- Draw cards for a nursing home
- Let someone skip in line
- Your choice (pick-your-own act of kindness)
Day 6 challenge: candy cane bomb a parking lot
Today, we completed Day 6: Candy Cane Bomb a parking lot. The boys were most excited about this one! We had so much fun being sneaky and placing the candy canes on the cars.
So far, this has been a great experience in preparation for Christmas. At dinnertime, we talk about how it went, and discuss what challenges are coming up. Not going to lie, it is keeping us on our toes. But definitely worth it! If this is something you are interested in trying, I would definitely recommend going for it. You never know how putting out a little extra kindness into the world will impact others — and ourselves!
Melissa
These are so fun! How have they been going?
Ale Post author
Better than I could have imagined, Melissa. We talk about what the challenge is in the morning, and then at dinner, we talk about how it went. It is keeping us on our toes, but it is a challenge the whole family is excited about. We absolutely loved candy cane bombing a parking lot last weekend. Some are tougher than others. For example, today they are supposed to smile at 5 people which seems so easy. But when we talked about how they had to make eye contact with someone and make sure they SAW the smile, the kids were thinking it was going to be tough to pull off. We will see how it went!
Phyllis Marino
My husband and I were recipients of your candy cane act of kindness after mass last Sunday and we want to thank you. It brightened our day, and what a nice thing to do!