The holiday season abounds with opportunities for extending kindness to others. You could:

Buy or donate shoes, boots, clothes, and warm winter attire for a family in need.

Invite an elderly or lonely neighbor over for dinner…or take dinner to them and chat.

Help an elderly person with grocery shopping. They may have their own story of a child who died.

Visit a nursing home, and sit and listen to some of the residents. Bring them some homemade goodies.

Shovel someone’s driveway.

Leave a bouquet of flowers at another child’s grave in the cemetery.

Pay someone’s electrical bill. (Especially in these tough economic times, many people can experience severe, uncontrollable or unplanned hardships and are unable to pay for their energy needs.)

Volunteer time at a crisis nursery, an animal or homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, a food bank, a book shelter…

Leave a large tip for your food server, your newspaper carrier…

Knit or crochet a baby blanket for the hospital nursery. Premature babies can always use tiny booties and caps.

Put together a balloon bouquet and ask the nurses at the children’s hospital to deliver them to a child. (Or donate those games and clean stuffies your children don’t play with anymore.)

Pay someone’s parking meter (especially if it is going to expire).

What other acts of kindness can you come up with?

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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