12 Days of Giving

(Original post here.)

Wow! It's so amazing to see how many of you are incorporating this into your holidays this year!!

Some of you have contacted me, asking for ideas on what to do, so I've compiled a little list. Hope that it helps! Oh, and if you are participating I'd LOVE to know about it and follow along on your journey, so be sure and let me know.

I understand the importance of keeping costs low. It's hard to dig in and find something that doesn't exist, so what about these FREE options for Giving?

*Scrape your neighbors windshield one morning

*Shovel someones walkway

*Bring back their garbage can from the curb

*Let someone go in front of you in line

*Put together a Parent's Night Out in your neighborhood and offer to babysit the kids at your place for 3 hours, for free.

*On a smaller scale, offer to give someone you know some free time by taking their kids for a Saturday afternoon or evening.

*One of the dinners you plan on having this week? Let your neighbor know that you'll be dropping it by for THEM to have, as a gift. Then eat a sandwich or cereal for your dinner.

*Organize a food drive in your neighborhood for your local food bank. (This one is on our list - We plan on distributing a note to the neighbors with a plastic bag. The note will let them know that we are collecting donations for the local food bank and give them a short list of items the food bank has specifically asked for. Then we'll let them know what date and time we will be by to collect and tell them to just leave the bag on their doorstep if they have a donation. Monetary cost? $0)

*Donate blood. There is always a shortage of blood around the holidays yet the accidents and need for blood increases because of all the travel.

*Call your local nursing/retirement home and ask them if you can come and play a game of cards or checkers with someone.

*Call your local pet shelter and ask if there is something you can do for an hour or two.

*Bake a loaf of bread or batch of cookies and secretly deliver it to a neighbor.

*Offer to take your neighbors kids to school with yours for a week/Offer to drive the carpool on a week/day that isn't yours.

*Donate your unused blankets, coats, clothes, toys, etc to a shelter. Make sure the items are still in good condition though! No reason to use the local shelter as the dump. If it isn't good enough for YOU to use, it isn't good enough for them.

*Leave thoughtful notes for someone in your family in a place they'll find them when you're not around.

*Mail a love letter to your husband/wife/person of interest. HA!

*Forgive someone.

*Donate your time and expertise to a shelter.

*Become a mentor in your local elementary school.

*Serve food at the soup kitchen.

And that's just off the top of my head!

There are NO rules to the 12 Days of Giving other than to just resonate kindness. You can do them whenever, wherever, however. You can adopt a family and do all 12 acts for that one family. You can do it spending no money. You can do it spending a lot of money. Whatever you decide and whatever works for you.

I ran across another version that is in the same vein. I hope she doesn't mind me linking her up, but go check it out for some inspiration along with the other blogs in the McLinky.

Happy Friday to ya.