Random acts of Christmas kindness part 1!

December 2nd and we are into our month of advent activities. Instead of treats each day for the kids, they open up a labelled paper bag to discover what random act of kindness (or another others-focused activity) we will be doing.

Yesterday was day 1, since it was Sunday, I asked the girls to write a little note to someone at church. Easy to do and warmly received by recipients. Char is a lot more shy than Esther so she needs encouragement to do things like this, but it was not too confronting passing along a little envelope. Tick!

Today, the plan of action was to pin some $2 coins onto the ride-on cars at the local shops. The girls were pretty excited about this when we opened it up this morning and were eager to get on to it when they got home from school. They quickly changed and were a bundle of excitement to go on this sneaky venture! I was pleasantly surprised that Hudson had himself absorbed in some activity in the cubby house, involving ropes and buckets and didn't want to come along. I didn't push the point as Hudson is probably a tad young to appreciate what we were about to do, and I could foresee the potential for tantrums at not getting to ride the cars at the shops himself! So, he got to stay put with Uncle Arien and Opa and we headed on our merry way. (I narrowly avoided a mni break down myself as I couldn't find the santa sticky tape which, in my mind seemed absolutely essential for this activity....breathe... we found it!)

It was really fun coming to the shops with the sole purpose of doing sneaky kind things for other people and I really was amazed at how thrilled they were to do it AND they didn't ask for anything!(OK, almost! we did pass Wendy's on the way out and Esther cast a longing glance and a meek request my way, but coped with the negative response well).

Our first target was occupied, so we went to the next known kid-vehicle. The girls hopped in, bag in hand, whipped out the card and sticky tape and quickly fixed it, upside down, between the steering wheels (there is always two right?). Then, they quickly bounded out and we scurried away back to the first car which was now empty, same again, into the ambulance they hopped, out comes the sticky tape and card and job done!

We had two more cards with $2 coins and the challenge was what to do wtih them as there are no more ride ons at our shops... We popped into Foodland as I thought maybe we could stick it in the chocolate aisle...? A definite 'no' from Esther on that one... We rode up the escalator to the cinemas to see if the gamer machines were still there...Nope...Hmmmm...Esther had a brainwave. Back we walked to the toy store, and there was the perfect thing- a $2 toy dispenser machine thing, which I had never really observed. Brilliant!

The last one we stuck onto the inside of the 'whale' that is a popular play spot. Some lucky child will discover it and can spend as desired!

It was a great success for our first public outing of random acts! It really was fun to see the kids get into it and feel the joy of doing unexpected kindnesses to others... We did do a few laps around the shops to see what had been taken, the first car was empty upon our return!... It is slightly unsatisfying not to see the finder's reaction... But, the girls just had so much fun being the instigators and I think imagining how someone might respond and having the mystery of remaining anonymous is quite a thrill! And I love that their mind is getting off of themselves and onto others!