Twelve Days of Christmas

Yesterday we had the chance to participate in a group "12 Days of Christmas" project and it was so fun (I almost forgot to write about it...)

There is a popular tradition of choosing someone to give gifts to every day for the twelve days leading up to Christmas. My family did it a few times when I was growing up and I've always wanted to do it again. I have the best intentions, but let's be honest: 12 days is a huge time commitment this time of year. While I still think it is an awesome tradition that I may pick up down the road, our friends introduced us to a group version that is pretty cool.

Our friend, Ian, organized a group of twelve families (including his own) to each take one of the twelve days of Christmas. He met a man at his barber shop who had fallen on hard times and was struggling to pay his monthly bills. Ian simply got commitments from all of us, then he sent out an email with first names of everyone in the family, ages, and their address. As each family does their day, they report back to Ian what they gave so that he can forward it on to avoid duplication.

We put together a "Christmas Kick-Off" bag of goodies to get the recipient family into the holiday spirit. We included Christmas movies, popcorn, M&Ms and kisses, hot chocolate, family games, and some cash. Before we went, we read a story about a Christmas drop-off very similar and I think Addie actually started to grasp what we were doing. She and Anthony ran the bag up to the door, rang the bell, and ran back to the car.

I was so grateful our friend asked us to do this. It made me think on many levels. One of the most remarkable things to me was that he simply met this man in a random location. It wasn't someone from work or church that he sees often enough to easily know of his circumstances. Instead of checking his email on his phone, or texting, or reading the paper, or just looking down while he was getting a hair cut he looked around him and engaged with people.

The group was also made up of a variety of people. Neighbors, friends, coworkers and people of varying religions. This cuts away all the junk about keeping your address and name and circumstances secret from everyone and gets down to the heart of a community taking care of each other. Great lesson and a great tradition! I hope we do it many years to come.