25 Days of Giving Final Recap

In a nutshell, my 25 Days of Giving turned out to be more along the lines of 19 Acts of Giving in a 36 Day Period. Not quite as catchy. Still, even though I wasn't that on top of it, I did more giving back this year than previous years, and that was the point. In the future, when Ezzy is big enough to understand what's going on, I'd like to adopt something along the lines of these kindness elves for the month of December. I think it's such a cute idea, and I follow her on Instagram and she pulls the elves out randomly throughout the year which I love.

Here's a recap of the last few Giving projects I crossed off my list in December/January:

14. Pay for coffee for the person in line behind me. This was on my Random Acts of Kindness list, and I saved it for Christmas Eve, which worked out well, like a little Christmas present for a random stranger. I've seen a lot of people doing this on Instagram, and it seemed like so much fun. I was in line at the Coffee Bean drive through, and I just gave the barista a $20 and asked them to pay for the person behind me as well. I'm not sure what that person ordered, but I do know it only took about two seconds for them to place their order, so I'm assuming they only got one drink. And that brings me to # 15...

15. Extra large tip for a barista - I gave the rest of the $20 to the barista as a tip. He was extremely surprised and thanked me at least three times. I'm sure not very many people leave tips at the drive through, so it must have been unexpected.

16. Donations for the library - I've accumulated quite a few bargain books from Barnes and Noble during the years I worked there. I thought I would read them, but then never got around to it. And since my "to-read" list grows much faster than I can cross books off of it, I figured I'd get rid of some of those books collecting dust and save my time for the books I really want to read.

17. Baked treats for our landlady - I decided she deserved them more than any of the people I originally thought of because she always responds quickly whenever anything needs fixing, and she's so sweet and has bought Ezzy a few presents this year.

18. I took about six cans of baby formula that were sent to me for free as samples to the local food bank.

19. Good online reviews for our favorite businesses - honestly, I almost forgot about this one, and I just now went and reviewed a handful of our current fave restaurants. I'll have to do this more frequently, since we have all kinds of food pics for various places, we may as well put them on Yelp.

If you're interested, here are the other 25 Days of Giving posts:
25 Days of Giving: Part 1
25 Days of Giving: Part 2
25 Days of Giving: Part 3

25 Days of Giving, Days 12 - 22

Three days till Christmas!!! And even more mind-boggling, there's only nine days left until 2014. Where did time go?? Other than a few late gifts I'm mailing out tomorrow, I'm as prepared for Christmas as I'm going to get. As far as this 25 Days of Giving goes, I'm about ten days behind.

For days 1-11, I completed six "days of giving" - including a few clothing and toy donations, and some Christmas cards for soldiers. The past ten days have been pretty jam-packed with a trip up North to Modesto, and some Christmas shopping and festivities, so I've been checking off some of the less time-consuming things that I wanted to get done off of my list.

7. Clothing donation for Planet Aid (#19 on my list) - I've been rummaging through my closet (for about the tenth time this year) and found a few more things I doubt I'll ever wear again. They're all bagged up and ready to be dropped off at the Planet Aid clothing bin conveniently located at the end of my street.

8. Sign Change.org petitions (#28 on my list) - I got lost on this site for awhile, looking at all the animal cruelty and food safety petitions. I actually enjoyed writing my comments on why I felt these petitions were important. In case your interested, here's a link to all the animal petitions and you can find the food safety petitions here.

9. Donation to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Their commercials get me every time, especially now that I have Ezzy.

10. Toy donation (Toys R Us gift card) + Christmas card to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Here's the address, if you're interested:
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Donor Services
Attention: "VOLUNTEER SERVICES"
595 North Parkway
Memphis, TN  38105

11. Donation to March of Dimes, per Zshnette's idea. And, if you donate before the end of the year, your donation will be matched. Win/win.

12. I drove out of my way (only a two-hour round trip) to buy my brother a special edition video game that he really wanted and they only had a few copies left in California. This may not be for the greater good, but I'm including it because giving and generosity should really begin within the family.

13. I've gathered up a collection of canned and dry goods to donate to a soup kitchen in Monrovia. Those will be dropped off tomorrow (along with the clothes).

Ok, so I'm actually 12 days behind, with only 3 days to go. Could be worse, right? So far I haven't done anything involving Christmas cookies. I'm afraid if I make them I'll just wind up eating most of them. Also, Joe said if I deliver cookies to firemen, then he's volunteering as a Cheerleader laundry person. Not really sure what that is or if such a thing exists, but we'll just skip the whole cookies for firemen thing. I also haven't done any of the random acts of kindness on my list, and those look really fun, so I plan on crossing a few of those off in the next few days.

I hope everyone's enjoying this merry season with loved ones!

25 Days of Giving, Days 1 - 11

Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes

Teens for Jeans, Toys for Tots, One Warm Coat donations

I said I would do weekly posts on my 25 Days of Giving project, but nearly two weeks have already flown by, so here's a  quick update:

1. Christmas cards for solidiers (through Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes) - so far this is the only project I have fully completed. The deadline was December 6th, and I managed to make four cards to mail out on the 4th. Hopefully that wasn't cutting it too close!
2. Donate change to all Salvation Army buckets (#25 on my list) - I have literally only seen one Salvation Army collection person since I vowed to give them all my change. All year round there's one outside our grocery store, and then come December he's vanished! And on my trips to the post office there have been signs where the bucket is supposed to be, but no bucket and no collector. Even at the mall the weekend after Black Friday we didn't see any Salvation Army Santas! What the heck?? The one time we did give them change was at the mall, and that was after I found three dollars on the ground, so it wasn't even my money. I'm still on the lookout though!
3. Toys for Tots - I picked up that Elmo doll/book combo, as well as a Sesame Street board book (not pictured). However, they're currently sitting on my dining table, so I can't actually consider this completed until I donate it, either tonight or tomorrow.
4. Teens for Jeans - Currently only two pairs of jeans fit me, but I'm still hopeful more will in the near future, so it was a little hard to determine which jeans to give up. However, I picked two that are really similar to other pairs that I already have, and I doubt I'll miss them and someone else could use them more. However, this drive doesn't begin until January 13th, so I'll just hold onto my jeans for another month.
5. One Warm Coat - I've picked out a coat I never wear anymore, now I just need to drop it off at the Container Store, either tonight or tomorrow.
6. Toy Donations for the Children's Hospital Los Angeles - According the website, space is limited, so I opted to pick up a Toys R Us gift card to mail to the hospital. It's sitting in a pile of Christmas Cards that is definitely getting mailed tonight.

Eleven days into December and I've only completed one and 5 halves of the things on my list. And tomorrow evening Ezzy and I are off to Modesto! So I either need to pick up the pace, or accept that it may take me 100 days to complete my 25 days of giving project. I have a few things in my mind for tomorrow though, so hopefully I can catch up!

25 Days of Giving

It's almost Christmas! I've been putting a lot of thought into what kinds of holiday traditions I want to begin this year for Ezzy. Growing up, my mom went all out to make sure Christmas was special and memorable. She did tons of baking and present giving and tree decorating and there was constantly holiday music playing in the background. I remember going through the toy catalog and circling all the toys I wanted (enough to gift an entire village, I'm sure) and then waking up to a mountain of presents under the tree. Looking back, I remember a few of the toys I got, and how fun it was to compare presents with my friends on Christmas day, but the parts that really stick in my mind are the family traditions: decorating sugar cookies, driving around to look at all the lit up houses, decorating our tree while listening to Christmas music, spending Christmas eve visiting family, and then spending Christmas day visiting with even more family, and finally capping off the day at the movie theater with my mom and brothers. So while I'm in no way saying that Ezzy isn't going to get presents for Christmas (he's the first grandchild, so I doubt he'll ever be lacking in the present department), I really want to put an emphasis on family activities and on giving, rather than receiving.

In addition to wanting to set a good example for Ezzy, I have so much to be thankful for, so I came up with the idea to try 25 Days of Giving this year. I'm not sure that this will be a yearly tradition, but I'm hoping to set a foundation of giving all year long, especially during the holidays. Also, keeping in mind that there are plenty of days that I don't even manage to wash my hair, I'm anticipating that there will be quite a few days when I don't do anything, followed by days where I'm able to cross four or five things off my list. I intend to blog at least once per week on the different giving activities we've done. To get myself started, I've come up with a bunch of ideas for giving back this holiday season:

Christmas Cards:
1. Cards for soldiers (deadline December 6th through Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes)
2. Cards for hospitalized children (deadline December 11th at Children's Hospital Los Angeles)
3. Cards to distribute through Meals on Wheels
4. Cards for seniors in assisted living homes

Feeding the Hungry:
5. Buy a few extra non-perishable items every time I'm at the store to donate to a local food pantry.
6. Make a casserole for a local soup kitchen.
7. Make brown bag lunches for local homeless.
8. Donate baby formula/diapers to local church or mom's shelter.
9. Donate dog/cat food to humane society.

Christmas Cookies for:
10. Mailman.
11. Fire department.
12. Police department.
13. Hospital workers.

For Children:
14. Toys for Tots (see website here).
15. Magazine subscriptions/books for CHLA (see guidelines here).
16. Toys for children's hospital (see guidelines here).

Clothing Donations:
17. Teens for Jeans - I happen to have about a dozen pairs of jeans that don't fit... (in partnership with Aeropostale, deadline February 16th, see info here).
18. Warm coat donation (drop off at Container Store, see more info here).
19. Clothing donations to Salvation Army and/or Planet Aid.

Random Acts of Kindness:
20. Good online reviews for our favorite businesses.
21. Leave extra big tips for barristas/servers.
22. Let someone cut in front of me in line.
23. Pay for coffee for the person behind me in line.
24. Bring flowers to the hospital to be distributed to random patients.

Other:
25. Donate change to all Salvation Army buckets.
26. Pick up trash when I see it.
27. Donate books/dvds to the library.
28. Sign change.org petitions.

There's also still room on my list for donations to specific charities. St. Judes tugs at my heart, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has a specific charity that is near and dear to them, message me or leave a comment to let me know! Also, for anyone who wants to explore this idea a bit further, here are a few blogs I came across that helped me out with charitable ideas and random acts of kindness:

• 35 Random Acts of Kindness
• Random Acts of Kindness.org
• 25 Days of Giving