Macy's and Writing Letters to Santa

This is the absolute best way to mail letters to Santa Claus in my opinion {Although don't forget I shared some fun ideas for emails from Santa and such last year}!  Macy's Department stores have a Santa Mail Box and cards to write letters on.  For each letter that is mailed in their box, they will donate $1.00(up to a million dollars) to the Make A Wish Foundation.  This is an amazing opportunity to not only support a cause, but to verify that your letters get mailed!

My kids and I had so much fun going to Macy's to participate.  It kicked off our whole holiday season and got us in the holiday mood.  My son, shown above, asked Santa for a machine that makes pennies into dollars.  Don't we all wish for that?  And we even got to see the hilarious Buddy the Elf {from a local production of Elf, The Musical} joining in on the fun too! I hope if you are looking for a new tradition in your family, you'll try this neat cause. Because you are never too old to believe in the magic of Santa Claus. Macy's brings the whole idea of the magic of Christmas to a new level by allowing us to help them serve kids in need.

See some of my favorite Christmas traditions from our 12 Days of Christmas posts last year!

Christmas Bonfire and Service - Replace those Creative Neighbor Gifts!

I know this is an early post, BUT, if you are going to go this route, it's less than 100 days until Christmas and you'll want to start organizing now so people don't buy their gifts yet.  So here you go...

It was two years ago today that I decided I was done with neighbor gifts. Don't get me wrong - I love the creative touch everyone puts into the gifts.  One of my favorites was the year I got the idea to give my neighbors cookie dough with the tag "We all could use a little extra dough this time of year!" or another time we gave muffin mix and said "You're getting muffin for Christmas!" Some other favorites I've seen or done:

• "We wash you a merry Christmas" with Bath & Body Works soap
• "We wisk you a "Merry Kissmas" with a wire wisk filled with hershey kisses
• "Don't let your dishes pile up.  Let our family do the dishes for a week." with a package of paper plates
• "Wishing you joy beyond measure" with measuring cups & spoons.
• "Add a little spice to your holidays" with Salsa.
• "Wishing you a sparkling holiday season" with sparkling cider.
• Here's a whole list of ideas I found in the newspaper... 

But last year I reflected on my own neighborhood where we are all fortunate enough to have nice Christmases, warm homes, clothes to wear, etc.  And I really felt like it was time to change our fun neighbor gift tradition to something that could be a bigger cause.  I wanted something still meaningful and I really wanted something that included spending time as a neighborhood. But I knew how powerful we could be in helping another cause as a whole.

So I sent an email out proposing my idea and the reponse was unanimous.  I chose a December evening  to start.  We gathered as many portable firepits as we could and set them up around my cul-de-sac (I live on a circle, but this could work on any street).  We put fliers on everyone's door and stapled an elastic on them so we could easily slip them on doorknobs.  Everyone brought dessert to share and I provided hot chocolate.  Then everyone was also asked to bring something to donate to our service project.  You could choose something different each year to donate to.  

Neighbors came, served, ate yummy treats, warmed by the bonfire and socialized.  It was everything I dreamed it would be.  And when we took our wonderful amount of gifts to The Road Home and Candy Cane Corner, there were tears in eyes for what we had done.  Although I love the cute neighbor ideas, I am sure this is now a tradition that will continue on and help us keep the meaning of Christmas alive.

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Great Community Service Idea- Halloween Trick or Treating for the Food Bank

My grandma shared a very sweet story with me (forgive me if I tell it wrong because this is from memory).  Her husband died in a plane crash when she was close to my age now.  She had 4 young kids.  At some point she was reading some letters that her mother-in-law (who had died before my grandma ever got to meet her) had written to her son.  In them, she said if you are feeling down, go out and serve someone.  My grandma told me that she took that advice and made an awful lot of bread for others after her husband passed away.

It's a simple story, but it has always touched me and I literally do this when I am down or overly stressed.  I find some way, more often small than big, to serve someone around me.  I have always loved serving others who need things more than me.  It's selfish.  I find so much joy in it.  So anyway.. the next couple of posts (and the last military survival kits one) will share some of my service ideas that have been very fun!

One of my favorite service projects has been trick-or-treating for the food bank.  Simple, fun, and effective!  I was in charge of a youth activity at our church in October and wanted something for Halloween, but also meaningful. So service it was! We had a very fun evening trick-or-treating for the food bank. Not everyone dressed up, but a bunch did and we had a great time. The kids went in small groups and I had broken down our larger surrounding neighborhood by streets.  I assigned each group a certain number of streets to cover and they trick or treated for the food bank.  We did notify the neighborhood ahead of time with flyers on their doors so hopefully there weren't a lot surprised by our activity.  My car was FULL of food to deliver.   At the end we finished with some halloween treats and conversation.  We had a great turn out - I guess everyone still loves Halloween regardless of their age!

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Serving the Service - Military Survival Kits

We had a great service project a while back. We did an activity with youth and wanted to serve the military.  I happened to have a cousin serving over in Iraq, so with internet help (what did we ever do without the internet?), I came up with a very fun survival kit and we packaged up 16 of them to be distributed to whomever my cousin thought could use a pick-me-up. The funny thing about it is that it was all candy and my cousin was in the medical troop as a dentist!  The youth had a lot of fun putting the kits together and writing letters to unknown servicemen. We talked about what these men and women are doing for our country and I was very pleased with the compassion the teenagers showed and how sincerely grateful they seemed. I am very happy that we were able to give them a chance to see beyond their lives and sheltered community to see what a blessing it is to have freedom.

Here's what the kit said:

Your Personal Military Survival Kit
Gum... to help you stick it out
Sucker... to help you lick your problems
Tootsie roll–...to help you roll
with the punches
Mint... because you are "worth a mint"
Laffy Taffy... to remind you to laugh
Lifesaver ... to remind you that you
are a real lifesaver
Starburst... for when you need a
burst of energy
Crystal light... to lighten your load
Lemonheads... "when life gives you lemons make lemonade"
Fireball... for the times you feel
completely "burned out"

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