Tag Archives: 24RACKs

2018 Random Acts of Christmas Kindness/Light the World

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Like we do every December, we counted down to Christmas doing random acts of kindness each day. Here’s a few of the things we did.

We volunteered handing out blessing (food) boxes and organizing donated clothes at a community center downtown.
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We fed the birds.
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We left little gifts at our neighbors’ doors.
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We taped change to a vending machine.
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We left happy notes in books at the library.
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We made homeless packs to give out to people who need them.
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We left microwave popcorn on Redbox machines.
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We donated toys to be given to refugee children in our area.
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We picked up trash along the road near our neighborhood.
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We brought in our neighbors’ cans and left candy canes on them.
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We candy cane bombed a parking lot.
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We donated blood.
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We cleaned our cars really well.
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We paid for someone else’s meal.
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We wrote our testimonies in copies of the Book of Mormon and gave them to the missionaries to give out.
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Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, Days 17-24

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We have completed the final 8 days of Random Acts of Christmas Kindness (see days 1-8 here and days 9-16 here).

On Sunday the 17th, he boys took treats to their primary teachers.
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On Monday the 18th, we taped change to a vending machine.
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On Tuesday the 19th, we paid for someone else’s food at Kneader’s.
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On Wednesday the 20th, we attempted to put carts in the corrals at Target and HEB, but there were none to put away. So, instead, we rearranged the carts in the corrals at HEB so they’d be easier for the employees to take back up to the store.
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On Thursday the 21st, we took food to the food bank.
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On Friday the 22nd, we left microwave popcorn on Redbox machines.
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On Saturday the 23rd, we candy cane bombed a parking lot.
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On Sunday the 24th, we used hug coupons to get hugs from each other.
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Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, Days 9-16

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We’ve done another 8 days of #24RACKs (for the first 8 days, go here).

On Saturday the 9th, we took cat and dog treats and toys to the Animal Defense League. Lola helped us deliver them because that’s where we adopted her four years ago.
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On Sunday the 10th, we held the door for other people.
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On Monday the 11th, we brought up our neighbors’ trash cans and left candy canes for them.
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On Tuesday the 12th, we gave a lottery ticket to a stranger.
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On Wednesday the 13th, we picked up litter.
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On Thursday the 14th, we took cookies to our pharmacist.
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On Friday the 15th, we fed the birds.
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On Saturday the 16th, we took socks to the homeless shelter.
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Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, Days 1-8

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We’re doing #24RACKs (Random Acts of Christmas Kindness) again this year. We love doing this, making the last few weeks before Christmas extra special. It’s mostly me and Fritz doing it, but sometimes other people get involved.

On Friday the 1st, we dropped heads up pennies on the sidewalk. Fritz made a smiley face out of some of them in front of our neighborhood mailboxes. A few days later he discovered that someone had reformed the pennies into a stick figure so that was fun.
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On Saturday the 2nd, we made cards for people in Sutherland Springs Texas (the mass shooting a few weeks ago at the church).
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On Sunday the 3rd, we did secret acts of kindness for other people. One of the things Fritz did was make hot chocolate for Ani.
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On Monday the 4th, we did chores for people in our family. Fritz cleaned Ani’s birds’ cage for her.
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On Tuesday the 5th, we left happy notes in random library books.
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On Wednesday the 6th, we left bubbles at our neighbor’s front door.
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On Thursday the 7th, we wrote notes to other people in our family. We had to switch this one with another planned day because of the weather. We got snow in south Texas!
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On Friday the 8th, we gave an Amazon gift card to our mail carrier. This one also had to be switched with another day because of weather.
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Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, Week 3

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It’s been another week and we’ve completed our 24 days of Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. We got the idea from Coffee Cups and Crayons.

On the 18th (Sunday), we fed the birds. It got really cold the night before (okay, it was in the 40s during the day, but for where we live, that’s cold) so the birds were slow to come out, but eventually we saw some of them eating the seeds we tossed out in our front and back yards.
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On the 19th (Monday), we wrote happy notes and took them to the library and put them in random books on the shelves. Hopefully, some people will get a nice smile or pick me up some time in the future thanks to those notes.
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On the 20th (Tuesday), we put a Sonic gift card in an envelope addressed to our mail carrier in the outgoing mail slot. We just hope she noticed it when she pulled out the mail.
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On the 21st (Wednesday), we gathered up carts from the Target parking lot and put them nicely in the corrals to make it easier for the employees who have to bring the carts in. Cameron did it with no shoes on. He hates wearing shoes no matter what the temperature unless he absolutely has to (today was mid-60s, but even when we were in the 40s he still refused to wear them).
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On the 22nd (Thursday), we made blueberry muffins and took them to the people who work at our pharmacy. I don’t think people tend to take pharmacists Christmas treats because they were pretty surprised.
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On the 23rd (Friday), we candy cane bombed a parking lot. It was oddly fun! (And Cameron did it barefoot yet again.)
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On the 24th (Saturday), we drew pictures and took them to one of our local nursing homes and gave them out to some of the residents. They were so happy to get them. We were rewarded with a whole lot of big smiles.
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So that a wrap on our 2016 Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. We had so much fun with it. We’ve decided to do some sort of random act of kindness once a month January through November and then do the 24 days again next December. It’s so nice to spread happy and, as Fritz said as we were candy cane bombing, “This really feels kind of good.”

Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, Week 2

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We’ve completed another week of Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. We got the idea from Coffee Cups and Crayons.

On the 11th (Sunday), we held the door for people. Cameron has started making funny faces in pictures for some reason.
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On the 12th (Monday), we went around our neighborhood and brought all our neighbors’ trash cans up to their garages. We hung candy canes on the cans. I must say I am glad we have such a small neighborhood. That was more work than I expected!
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On the 13th (Tuesday), Jamie taped a baggie of change on a vending machine where he works. I hope whoever found it truly enjoyed their treat.
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On the 14th (Wednesday), we did chore for or otherwise helped other people. For example, Cameron swept the stairs for me, Adrian put away some dishes for Fritz, and Fritz volunteered to help decorate for the Christmas party at church.
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On the 15th (Thursday), we gave a scratch-off lottery ticket to a random stranger. Even if it wasn’t a winner, we hope they had fun doing the scratching!
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On the 16th (Friday), we took cookies to the fire station. They gave us a tour! The little guys have taken a few tours there in the past, but every one is different. While we were there we got to watch several of the guys leave with the lights on and sirens blaring. A woman had gone into labor early and was in severe pain so they were off to get her to the hospital and hopefully not deliver a baby on the way.
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On the 17th (Saturday), we took some dog and cat toys and treats to the Animal Defense League (where we got Lola). We almost came home with a another dog, but Lola is determined to stay an only.
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Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, Week 1

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This year during December we are doing daily Random Acts of Kindness leading up to Christmas. We got the idea from Coffee Cups and Crayons. We switched around and changed some of the ideas to fit our schedule a bit better. The first week (and a half) we did some fun stuff.

On the 1st (Thursday), we dropped pennies heads up on the sidewalk in front of taekwondo, church, and the elementary school where the boys went (I noticed the pennies in front of taekwondo were gone by Saturday and the pennies at church were gone by Sunday afternoon).
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On the 2nd (Friday), we picked up trash on a small stretch of sidewalk next to our neighborhood. We picked up dozens of cigarette butts, cups, straws, and even a bath mat! We did not do a very long stretch of road and yet we had quite a lot of trash in our 13 gallon trash bag. Fritz said he hopes we would inspire 100 other people to pick up trash around where they live. It wouldn’t take much time and would make our world a much nicer place.
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On the 3rd (Saturday), we handed out stickers to children out shopping with their parents. We had 24 sheets of stickers in 4 different designs. The looks of amazement turning to joy on the children’s faces as we gave them out was so awesome. One thing is for sure. Kids love stickers!
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On the 4th (Sunday), we each did a secret act of kindness. I can’t say what those little random acts of kindness were (because they are secret, of course!), but it was fun finding something to do.
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On the 5th (Monday), we left two bottles of bubbles in front of our next door neighbor’s door. We even managed to leave them there without them noticing.
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On the 6th (Tuesday), we gave our taekwondo instructor a six-pack of his favorite soda, Mountain Dew. It really is fun to just randomly give people things.
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On the 7th (Wednesday), we gave cookies to our other next door neighbor. We had intended to make them, but we were out of our flour blend and didn’t have enough white rice flour to make more. So Jamie picked up the best cookies ever (the only ones I miss) on his way home: Chips Ahoy Chew Chocolate Chip. Our neighbor was so surprised and excited when we rang their bell and gave them the cookies. Our neighborhood is mostly one of those where you just wave and nod at your neighbors. We don’t really know any of them so that somehow made it even nicer to do this.
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On the 8th (Thursday), we made hug coupons. This was an extra hard one for Cameron. He does not like to be hugged. He really never has. Adrian made one for Ani and she turned it in for her hug right away, but then asked if she could keep the coupon since his 8-year-old boy handwriting is so adorable.
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On the 9th (Friday), we left bags of microwave popcorn on the Red Box machines outside our local Walgreens. Hopefully someone’s movie night got just a little bit more fun.
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On the 10th (Saturday), we went to Chick-Fil-A and paid for the meal of the car behind us. It was a family with a couple little ones. We told the guy running the drive-thru to wish them a Merry Christmas.
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