You've been RACK'd!

We used to have this Advent Santa thing. He was made of some kind of felted material that looked worse each year we took him out of the box and had a string hanging from his beard with a mitten which never quite made sense. You tucked the mitten in the appropriate day of the month to countdown and that was it. But he was not exciting, or cute, and so he often went forgotten making him highly ineffective. Last year we had an awesome candle from England - the kids loved lighting it and it was a total success...but the problem with candles when you burn them is that they melt. So it was a one time kind of thing.

So the advent has begun, the craziness of Christmas has begun. And the cookie baking, carol singing, classic movie watching, Christmas tree decorating, Jesus birth celebrating part of me is LOVING it. But the mom who doesn't always get it right, who wants to give her kids everything they want but still not spoil them or make them materialistic...she's in over her head.

So this year advent in our house is an attempt to teach, or maybe reinforce things we've always taught, what Christmas spirit looks like, that God gave a gift of love and kindness and that we are to celebrate Him and His son by doing the same.

Enter 25 days of Random Acts of Christmas Kindness (Thank you Pinterest!)! Whether you celebrate Christmas because you are an American or because you are a Christian celebrating the birth of our Savior I encourage you to join in. Trying to think of 25 things we could do as a family and not spend hundreds of dollars stretched me in amazing ways. Sometimes its the little things that go a long way. So even if you are not counting down this season - join us in our random acts of kindness!

Um...ding dong ditched sounds terrible but its actually cute. A box of Hostess ding dongs delivered to a neighbor, we have neighbors with kids that will love it!!