Random Acts of Kindness

Today my five year old nephew and I set out for a "Be Kind to Others Day." We quickly found out two things: 1. People are hesitant to others being kind 2. It feels pretty amazing doing things for others. 

Before we left the house we put some fudge and a Christmas card on the mailbox for the mail carrier. When we were driving home we saw him walking a couple houses down with our package in hand. I'm really not sure why I haven't done that before.

We got in the car and drove to a local park with a huge playground. We started handing out candy canes and Christmas pencils to kids on the play structures. We even hung some candy canes on the slides and ladders. We came across a parent who was taken aback and kept making sure we didn't want any money for them. We just said, "Merry Christmas!" and headed to the car. My nephew didn't even want to play, he said we had other "missions of kindness" to go on. Love that little guy.

We stopped by Starbucks for some hot chocolate, because by our wimpy standards, it was cold! We paid for the person behind us in the drive-thru which put a big smile on the barista's face. 

Our next stop was to the local hospital. We put some coins in baggies, added our random acts of kindness tags, and taped some to the snack and drink vending machines throughout the hospital. Hopefully they'll warm some hearts!

We loaded up our plastic red bucket again, this time with some Christmas themed pencils, erasers, stencils, and notepads. We visited the local library and stopped in at the children's section. 

We left the bucket with the library clerk to hand out to children. She was so overwhelmed, I think she said thank you 20 times. She told my nephew she appreciated his spirit of giving and a huge grin spread across his face. He said, "This is fun!" 

Our last stop for the day was to a Salvation Army kettle in front of the grocery store. The bellringer was  very sweet, although I'm really not sure how her ears are not super sore by the end of the day from all of the ringing.

On the way home my nephew and I had a long talk in the car about being kind to others. He chalked it up to being like the game Hot Potato. He said you shouldn't keep kindness to yourself, you should keep passing it along back and forth. Melt. my. heart.

If you're interested in a freebie of the tags we used for our acts of kindness, get them here! I'd love to hear about your acts of kindness!