A New Christmas Tradition?

Early in the Christmas season I was starting to get annoyed at the way the kids were bickering so much. There was a lot of sibling rivalry and they were purposefully antagonizing each other on a regular basis. Add to that their growing Christmas lists and a serious case of the "gimmies" and I knew it was time for an intervention. I was flipping through Family Fun magazine and decided to try out an idea they had on giving and serving during Christmastime. So here's what we did..

We made a list of about 25 good deeds that the girls could complete one on any given day. We had things like clean your sister's room, give as many compliments as you can, hold the door open for people, pray for someone in need, donate some of your money to the needy, and call someone and sing them a Christmas carol. We wrote them on strips of paper and each of the girls got a jar to put them in.

Then they each got to decorate their jar with ribbon and bells.

Each morning they would pick a deed from their jar and complete it sometime during the day. The girls were so excited about this. Especially early on, they couldn't wait to go pick out their deed and get to work on it. After they completed the good deed, they signed their name to the back and placed the paper in a special gift box. And then on Christmas day they presented all their completed deeds to Baby Jesus in our nativity as his birthday gift. I love what this did for our family. It got the girls (and me) refocused on the most important gift of Christmas, Jesus. And reminded them that there can be more joy in giving and serving. I hope we can continue this as a tradition through the next few years.