Kindness Means Be Nice to People!

As I previously mentioned, I decided that I wanted to spend a large part of the holiday season teaching my daughter the meaning of kindness.  After a lot of internet research, I settled on a Kindness Inspires Kindness project in which we'd strive to do little things to make people smile.  We have a few tasks left to accomplish, which we'll do in the coming weeks.  But I wanted to go ahead and share what I consider to be some of my most favorite memories with CK to date.  And I'd also consider it a success - if you even mention the word "kind," my sweet little girl will interrupt to make sure you know that it means "be nice to people!"  Even though she's only two, I truly feel as though she understands the meaning of what we've been doing.  If there is one lesson I want to teach her in this lifetime, it is to always have a kind heart.

So... here is how we tried to inspire kindness!

*We delivered hot chocolate to our favorite newspaper salesman on the street corner.

*We taped change to the front of a 25 cent prize machine in the grocery store.

*We made and delivered cards to a neighboring retirement home:

*We paid for the person's drive-thru order behind us:

*We donated money to my brother-in-law's charity event to deliver Thanksgiving meals to the poor.

*We baked and delivered cookies to the fire station:

 *We donated dog treats to the local animal shelter.

*We left a surprise dollar for an unsuspecting child in the dollar store:

*We left a surprise for the mailman in our mailbox:

*We donated money to the bell-ringers who were collecting for the Salvation Army.

*We delivered all kinds of gifts to the children at a local orphanage:

*We rode around in the wagon and picked up trash in our neighborhood.

*We left a motivating note on the mirror in a public bathroom:

*We donated lots of clothes and household items to Goodwill.

*We gave the homeless man on the corner money for breakfast.

*We left a surprise gift of books for a child in front of the local public library:

 *And we mailed some artwork (made by CK, of course!) to her cousins:

I hope our small acts of kindness inspire you to be nice to people!  As the famous quote says, we can't do everything for everyone, but we can all do something for someone.