Well … December is over and with it, our Random Acts of Christmas Kindness or RACK. This year the girls and I made the Christmas season about loving others and in the process, sharing God’s love for others, by performing one RACK each day of Advent.
Here’s an iPhone photo of our mission completed!
As with my handmade Christmas gifts … I didn’t want to make this RACK activity about “blogging” it … I wanted to be truly “present” with each activity and the girls, so instead of bringing my camera and worrying about blogging shots … I’d grab a random iPhone photo when I could.
Some of our activities included in the photos below:
- Taping candy canes to ATM machines around town
- Bringing the girls riding instructor {and barn manager} hot cocoa and a muffin early one morning
- Taping quarters to vending and toy machines around town
- Grocery shopping for the sole purpose of putting it in the “Food for Families” box in the entryway of the store
- Plugging meters around town {and lots of fun explaining to the girls what “plugging” a meter meant!}
- Donating 72 stockings with treats, candy and a craft for second graders at a school in need
- Ringing Salvation Army bells
- Handing out Starbucks gift cards {$5.00 value each}
Some of our activities without photos:
- Paid past due library fees for 5 people
- Donated a poinsettia to the girls school
- Bought and donated toys for “Toys 4 Tots”
- Brought the girls teachers their favorite Starbucks drinks
- Brought treats to the employees of our local Post Office branch
- Purged from the girls personal “library” and donated to a school library in need
Originally, our plan was to hand out flowers at the mall, but the day before this RACK was planned, CJ had his company program and shared with everyone how we were celebrating the Advent season … that they “were about to be RACK’ed” … and had the girls go through and hand out Starbucks cards to everyone. We had a ton left over, so decided to hand them out at the mall instead of flowers.
I have to tell you … I experienced an incredible surge of emotion and thoughts as we were handing them out. Either people were so shocked and happy, or people would ignore us, shaking their heads and walking by. As people were ignoring us … or more significantly, the girls, I made a solemn vow to grab whatever anyone was trying to give me from now on!
The next day, I received this message …
Hi Tracie! Just wanted to share this with you..
Bennett and I were at the mall yesterday
and of course, I was kind-of rushing through
the holiday crowd to pick something up
(wanting to get in and out) and Bennett tugs o
my hand and said, “Mom, did you hear that?
Someone said they have free Starbucks cards.”
Not even turning around, I told him that it
was probably someone wanting you to buy
something, that nothing is ever for free.
Long story short, when I got home and read
your status, I explained to him that he was right
and it was the perfect opportunity to talk about
all the good that people have in them.
So I wanted to thank you for 1. Reminding me
that there is “good” out there, and
2. That I need to slow down and really listen!
I LOVED this note!! It’s exactly what I experienced from the other side of giving out the cards. And seriously, what another amazing lesson in how when you do something selflessly to bless others, you end up being blessed yourself!
The girls were watching TV recently and something came on explaining Advent … this particular activity was using candles to countdown Advent. I took the opportunity to talk about all the different ways people celebrate, and I even reminded them of our activity last year. When they asked what we’d do next year, I asked what they wanted to do.
Hands down and with excitement they quickly answered, “our kindness activity.” Yep! just like I always say … it’s far better to give than to receive!”
Praying a happy and blessed 2011 for you all!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
UPDATE {11.28.11}
I’ve created a blank RACK’ed activity card … the download can be found in this post. At the end of the post, you’ll find another link to other downloads.
Thank you … SO much … for the response to this little activity we did last year! I’m amazed and excited to think how many people will be blessed this year because of it! If you have a moment, be sure to stop by and let me know how it went for you! Have fun and be blessed!!
What a wonderful idea. Thank you for living what Christ taught. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Consider me R.A.C.K. #26 (I’m sure there are many more) and it didn’t even cost you but the time for posting this. You have MADE MY DAY!
I think the poster was trying to inspire others. If she did not share what she was doing, then how would she inspire others. She was trying to show that little things really do mean a lot. I agree that you do not have to spend a lot of money to make this happen. You could do some of the quarter machines for kids. That would thrill them. GO to the post office and you will find many people struggling with their packages to mail and you can help them by offering to carry or just by simply opening the door. You can let someone with a few items in front of you, when you have a lot of things. You can pay for someone’s toll behind you, drive through line. There are so many things that can do to make a big difference. Hold the elevator door open for someone.
Love your post on RACK deeds! This past Christmas I gave my grown children and their spouses $20 each to do a RACK for someone. On Christmas Eve night before we opened our presents we all shared the stories of our RACK. They not only shared their story but they also had to share the reaction of the person they blessed. What a way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas! We were the ones that were truly blessed by the stories that were shared! We are always looking for new ways we can show RACK to someone all through the year. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Thank you for sharing this wonderful gift giving idea. One post thought you were bragging about what you did. I don’t as a matter of fact I thank you, we are always wanting to do small things for people but I am not imaginative. You provided me and many others with some very simple ideas. Thanks again and God Bless You.
WOW, this is Great, Christmas (and the Holidays in general) has become something so commercial all about giving things to people that already have enough, superfluous (unnecessary just in case someone doesn’t know what it means) things. For once it would be nice to give to those who are less fortunate than us. I’m a Speech and Language Pathology Student and my teachers always say that a grateful smile from one of the children or the people we help or from their families is better than any material thing we can get (in this particular context money, but for Christmas: gifts, money, etc.)
Love this idea! Truly expresses Christmas spirit.
I Love this idea….I love Christmas and it is my favorite time of the year! I love giving to people who are less fortunate than others and to all of the hurting people. I love to make people smile. I participated in Toys for Tots one year and the greatest gift that I received that year was to see the smile on the childrens faces when I gave them a gift. I am so glad that I ran across this on Pinterest
Loved this! Brought tears to my eyes.
I love doing this too. I will go to Starbucks and pay for the person behind me, and drive off!
Love to see the look on their faces trying to find the persons car- very special:)
One year on Christmas morning, we stopped at Starbucks on the way to our family’s home. As we got to the drive up window after waiting in a long line, the barista told us that our drinks had been paid for by the car ahead of us. In synchronized motion, our heads whipped around to the car in front of us where a man with a big grin looked at us in his side view mirror, waved and drove away. To say we were stunned and then touched, was an understatement. We paid it forward by paying for the car behind us. That was three years ago, and we still talk about it. Every Christmas morning, we roll in to Starbucks again, and we carry on this wonderful tradition.
Hi Tracie! I found this blog post through Pinterest and just loved it! I’m thinking of organizing a RACK project with some of my girlfriends from church. I posted a link to your post on my own blog, here: http://annhovsepian.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/lets-rack/.
I’m an author, too, and have written a couple of devos for tween girls. Would you be interested in doing a swap? :) You can check out my books here: http://www.annhovsepian.com/?page_id=6
I’m looking forward to checking out the rest of your blog. Have a blessed day! :)
Just wanted to let you know, “plugging meters” is illegal in many states. Just be safe and don’t get caught.
I’m dying over this post. I just found it on Pinterest and I have to say it’s so exciting to see families doing stuff like this together. So proud of your girls for sharing God’s love like this. RACK’ed is gonna be my new theme for Christmas this year!
Wow! Awesome post! Some ideas for your next RACK could be to make Christmas cards and pass them out at a nursing home. You can also pass out coffee or just Starbucks gift cards to nurses on shift (best at night)
Years ago my husband, sister in law and I made pies at Thanksgiving for a local “soup kitchen” Imagine our amazement when we went to deliver the 25 pies and the kitchen was closed due to no volunteers. I thought that was what I was doing. Obviously my plans were not the same as their plans and what they needed. So now I know to ask what I can do – not just assume. Thank you for sharing your caring.
Love this idea, but I think RAK without focusing on Christmas time leaves more of a surprise for people. My daughter likes to clear out her toys a few times a year and donate them to battered women’s shelters. Those families usually leave with nothing but what they can carry, so having something to play with and call their own may be a HUGE comfort at the most needed moment.
Thanks, God……for blessing me & inspiring me through this nice person, Tracie. And, Tracie- Thank you for being the blessing.
This is wonderful, and I am truly inspired! I’m glad I saw this webite now… plenty of time to gather my thoughts and make plans! :)
Wow!!! Absolutely awesome! Great idea, thanks for sharing.
God bless,
I LOVE the idea of doing this. I have a 2 and a half year old daughter and have been trying to figure out the best way to start teaching her to help others when she can. This is perfect!
I can remember donating toys every Christmas to children that were less fortunate than I was, and it made a lasting impression on me. (We weren’t wealthy by any means, but my parents always made sure we were able to donate.) I hope to teach the same values to my child that my parents taught me.
What an amzing idea! I love that along with the gifts you attach a card explaining a message about Jesus. I will be passing this along to my MOPS group, and be doing it with my own daughter, as well. Thank you very much for having the heart that you do, and using your gift of blogging to reach others in His name. I am so excited to do RACK this holiday season!
This brought tears to my eyes I am going to do this activity this year thank you for blessing me with this post
Just for everyone’s info, refilling someone’s meter is against the law. Seriously, if a cop sees you do it and you admit it isn’t your meter, you will get fined. Love the concept though.
LOVED this post…definitely going to do it for Christmas…but have decided to do it immediately where I work…. Thanks for sharing and inspiring!
This is a lovely idea & I will use your card (slightly adapted as I am not a Christian) to hand out as I RACK this year. I am on very low income so some of your ideas are out of my league but I’ll grab the ones I can. Some of the things I do year-round are…Give my “all day” bus ticket to someone in the queue when I get off the bus and won’t use it again that day; stick my parking ticket on the meter if there is time left on it for someone to use the rest of the time; collect tokens/vouchers for freebies or money off & hand them out to people at the supermarket. It is funny, as you say, either being ignored or the look of suspicion in people’s eyes when you approach them – but then the look of joy at an unexpected gift from a complete stranger. Oh how warm it can make you feel inside.
Loved this post. Very inspiring. I’d love to do some of these things with my nephews. They are very centered on what they are getting at Christmas. I realize how a lot of kids are, but I have more of a giving spirit like my mother, unfortunately my pocket book doesn’t always agree with that spirit. :)
Thanks for sharing this wonderful event of you and your girls.
Kayla Outhouse
Kayla, I understand the tight pocket book! I am planning to do random acts of Christmas kindness in a much less monetarily expensive way. I will be baking cookies for the firemen in our town, cooking a simple meal of sloppy joes and chips for our local veterans for their monthly meeting in December, hot chocolate packets with a few marshmallows and a candy cane in a ziploc for the police officers to enjoy after a cold shift, muffins for the ambulance crew, etc.
Try just sending a note of thanks, too. It is appreciated that you think of someone and appreciate what they do, no matter the cost. Like the old saying “it’s the thought that counts”
I love this Tracie!!!!!! Do you have other anyday random acts of kindness ideas?? please e mail me.
Loved what y’all did!! I try to teach my daughter that here are good people still out there. We donate, either our time, money, toys, clothes when ever we can along with random acts of kindness throughout the year. You gave me some other good ideas for us to do. I’m glad to know that other people are out there with random acts of kindness. A good deal of the time people look at us funny and don’t take what ever it might be but the ones that do look at us in amazement that someone was actually nice to them like it made their day. Makes me feel good inside and hope my daughter will carry it on as she gets older without me having to tell her we’re doing it.
I have been trying to think of a way to get my children more into the Christmas spirit and this is it! I am so excited. I can’t wait to see how this goes, but I am super excited to get started prepping.
Our Women’s group is currently working with intercity Teens and Tween’s. These are some great ideas and I thank you for sharing this with us.
Hi there, I just saw a link to your website on Pinterest. Just finished reading this & wanted to thank you. This was lovely to read and it brought tears to my eyes. I hope to remember some of these wonderful ideas with the holiday season now right around the corner. God bless you!
Just found this post through Pinterest – what a wonderful way to celebrate the Christmas season and to teach your children that it is better to give than to receive. I can’t wait to do this with my own kids one day! Thanks for sharing.
I too, just saw this via Pinterest and loved your thoughtful acts of kindness. I also thank you for the blank RACK’d pdf. Is the pdf “editable” so that the giver can type in the sentiment and then print out the cards?
Thanks again for sharing!
Kelli
This is awesome – thank you for sharing! Each year my 2 daughters, my husband, and I draw names and we have to make a gift for that person as a secret Santa but I think this year we might re-focus and do RACK’s for others instead!
I am definitely doing this with my family this year. I have been wondering how i could allow them to experience the joy of giving at Christmas instead of making “i want” lists and focusing on receiving…..instead they could truly understand the real meaning of Christmas!
Thank you for your beautiful holiday spirit. I lost my grandmother this year and she loved Christmas and giving to those less fortunate. She would have loved this – I plan on doing this this holiday season in honor of her and her holiday spirit. Thank you for the wonderful idea – God bless
While I think it’s a nice gesture, I don’t think taping candy canes around town–regardless it’s with a note–we tell children to not take candy from strangers I personally wouldn’t take candy that’s been taped up around town. Also, I’m Christian and atheists this day will take aim at anything “God” friendly and start a crusade against such tokens. Ok, maybe not in rural America, but I live in the land of fruits & nuts (aka California) and it wouldn’t sit well. Futhermore-it’s against the law to add time to people’s meters. Maybe tape that change to the card and put it on the person’s windshield? Effort would be lost if you put the quarter in and the person left immediately thereafter/and or you put it in a “smart meter’ that runs out when the person leaves. I like the food idea and I think this Christmas I’m going to spend $100 on groceries and donate them all :)
Wow Michelle, what a nice Debbie Downer post. With that being said, this are all great ideas and you will be blessed even more than those you have helped! God Bless you all!
I wanted to say, thank you for this post. It totally made me cry, when I read the note you recieved after handing out gift cards. This is a awesome idea and I want to do it myself this year. Thank you for your kindness.
This is so incredibly heart warming. I’m going to try doing a few of these activities this holiday season. And I may just do some year round. From now on, when leaving stores, if I have extra quarters I’m going to leave them on a toy machine or find the closest kiddo’s to give the quarters to personally <3 thank you for your inspiration.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful world if this caught on and everybody started doing random acts of kindness year round? : ) Loved your story. God bless!
amazing simply amazing!!! wish there were more people like you in the world and what a great example you are setting for your girls all while making memories does it get any better then that?
Just stumbled upon this via Pinterest. What a wonderful blessing not only to those you’ve RACK’d but to all of us that read this post. Thank you!
I read your post last year along with a story of people who were doing their campaign of “sharing Jesus in a practical way”. Both of those stories inspired me. Our family has bought peoples meals secretly and things like that but these ideas were great….small things that you can do for many more people!! So, we did something like this for our Youth VBS this year. We held doors open for people at the store and carried their bags to the car. We cleaned their windshield (they all wanted to pay us but we refused to take it and explained why). We gave out bottles of water, we bought a bag of suckers and handed them out telling people Jesus Loves You! They loved it. Then we finished the day with going to McDonalds and handing out $5 gift cards to random people who came in with kids. Then we took the last one and gave it out at the drive through. That lady was pulling way around us but then when she realized we were giving her something she loved it! Most of all our Youth loved it. They want to do it again for Christmas so we are coming up with ideas now!! Thanks for the inspiration! @ Michelle….the point is it doesn’t really matter if they leave and the meter clears or whatever…..it matters that you made and effort to do something kind. I wasn’t sure how the suckers would go because of the stranger and candy thing but it was amazing how people were open to it! Besides….even if they throw the candy away……they got the message of God’s love! Most of these are low cost items anyhow. Find things that work in your area. In Alabama where I live this past Christmas someone went in a Kmart and paid off several peoples layaways. It was on the news and the next thing you know people were paying off random peoples layaways ALL OVER the state!! It was the most awesome thing!!
I gave a gift card to the sweet girl that worked the drive thru at a local eatery. I did not know her name but her smile melted my heart and I knew she was just trying to make a living. One day at work we were discussing how we feel generous at Christmas time and I mentioned that I did that. The word quickly spread in my office and my coworkers made fun of me. But my heart felt good because I have never given a gift to anyone who was so appreciative. A few days later she presented me with a sweet thank you card and was wearing the hoodie she had purchased to keep her warm as she smiled thru the open window on cold winter mornings.
This is awesome my kids and I randomly plug meters all the time and we try to get a child off the angel tree every year but I never thought of doing it this way for Christmas my brain is swimming with ideas!
I looooove this! Although in some places it’s illegal to feed someone else’s meter, so I’d check that out in your area before doing that one.
I like to buy a $100 gift card at our starbucks and instruct the cashier to use it for as many people as she/he can until it runs out.
THANK YOU for sharing this!! I’ve been starting to think of things for us to do this year with my 6 and 2 year old. We live in a small town, so some of the things we can’t do- like feed the meter for people :) But, many of the others we can do! I’m going to add little goody bags (small stockings filled with goodies) for my husband’s employees to ours :) I think we’ll attach each day’s cards to our tree (we put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving instead of shopping). I think another one could be to see if a nursing home could use some help decorating for the holidays- and maybe give out donations :) I just love all your ideas, and my brain is now coming up with many more. We might just start this in November and do it all through December leading up to Christmas. Might do it once a week each month after as well- why should the ‘good will’ stop after the holidays? Anyway, THANKS! again.
Pingback: Moments of Extraordinary Generosity « This Exquisite Life
Pingback: It’s a Family Tradition | The Frugal Nest