6 Activities to Add Heart to your Holiday Party
By: Sarah Aadland of Doing Good Together™
We attend them. We spend hours selecting recipes and fresh décor concepts to make this year’s holiday parties memorable. And during the inevitable gift exchange, we cross our fingers, hoping our children restrain their inner beast long enough to squeak out a thank you to Aunt Carol before diving back into that mountain of paper and tape.
Amid so many messages of wanting and getting, so many wish lists and shopping lists, we all deserve to make time for giving back. What better opportunity than at the events already on our calendars?
Whether you involve immediate family or host a boisterous group of friends and neighbors, these ideas will add more meaning to your holiday parties and may become annual traditions that teach your children the values of compassion and empathy.
Plus, doing something for the greater good makes your guests feel good, too.
You’ll find everything you need to get started at Doing Good Together™, a national nonprofit dedicated to making it easier for your family, and mine, to raise compassionate kids.
- Print Big-Hearted Placemats: Add one-of-a-kind flare to your holiday table with these thought-provoking conversation starters. Plus, keep younger children occupied with a space to draw and write their thoughts.
- Fight Hunger: Invite guests to bring donations for the local food shelf. Plus, take time out of the festivities to make sandwiches for a local shelter. One family’s assembly line can make hundreds of sandwiches in just one hour!
- Celebrate with Crafty Compassion: Set up a card-making station – possibly near the dessert table – and create cards for kids in the hospital, a perfect activity for glitter and sticker enthusiasts.
- Inspire Book Lovers: Invite guests to bring books for donation. Send children’s books on to the Books for Life program at Family-to-Family. Send grown up books to deployed soldiers through Operation Paperback. Set out notepaper, pens, and crayons for anyone interested in leaving a cheery note in their book for its next owner.
- Create a Feast for Feathered Friends: Make birdseed cookies to decorate the trees in your neighborhood and spend a little time in nature watching the birds enjoy them.
- Feature a Giving Box. Decorate a container and collect funds for a cause you’re passionate about. Post information about your cause nearby, and make room for big-conversations.
Have fun, do good.
Sarah Aadland, MPP, Directs Doing Good Together’s Big-Hearted Families™ program and writes about her family’s kindness practice on the organization’s blog.
