2022 Random Acts of Christmas Kindness Advent Calendar

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the commercialism of the Christmas season…. And while it’s certainly OK to spoil yourself a bit, it’s also good to take a step back and celebrate the meaning of the season.  One way you can embrace this is using a Random Acts of Christmas Kindness Advent Calendar!

What is a Kindness Advent Calendar?

Many traditional advent calendars have a little compartment for candy or a small prize?  With this kindness advent calendar, you’ll replace those with a random act of Christmas kindness for someone else.

Adults can create a calendar for themselves to help ground you in the season and remind you of the gift of helping others.

But you can also create a family-friendly kindness advent calendar and get your kids involved too.  It’s a great way to help teach your kids how to help others and have empathy for others in a fun and celebratory way.

Benefits of Random Act of Kindness

Did you know that performing random acts of kindness actually has health benefits? Yup! So while the goal is to help others, you’ll be helping yourself as well.

The warm feeling of wellbeing that washes over you when you’ve done something kind isn’t just in your head. It’s in your brain chemicals, too.

Acts of kindness can release hormones that contribute to your mood and overall wellbeing. The practice is so effective it’s being formally incorporated into some types of psychotherapy. – Cedars-Sinai.org

Acts of kindness and gratitude have been shown to:

*Increase self-esteem, self-worth, optimism, and confidence
*Help forget your own physical or emotional pain
*Help decrease stress and acts as a stress release
*Improve immune response
*Decrease feelings of depression and self-doubt
*Increase sense of balance and overall well being

Will this get expensive?

The goal is for most of your acts of kindness to be free or very low cost.  While you can take on big-ticket things like adopting a child to purchase presents for, the kindness acts don’t have to break the bank.  The family-friendly calendar below is comprised of mostly free and low-cost ways to show kindness.  If you’re building your own calendar, choose which ones work for you!

Random Acts of Christmas Kindness Ideas for Kids

Here are some simple acts of kindness for kids and families that would be great on your kindness advent calendar.  Some might be able to be completed by the child alone, and others will need to be done together with mom or dad.

• Make a card for a soldier
• Bake a treat for a neighbor, policeman, or fireman.
• Choose one toy to donate.
• Write your teacher a note about how they help you.
• Do a chore for someone.
• Let someone go ahead of you in line.
• Help a neighbor with a chore or errand.
• Clean up litter outside (with gloves and with a grownup!).
• Hold the door open for someone.
• Write a note to your friend.
• Make Christmas cards for your neighbor.
• Give someone a nice compliment.
• Call Grandma or Grandpa and say hi.
• Tell jokes to someone who needs a laugh.
• Help put all the carts back in the cart corral in the grocery store parking lot.
• Make a present for a friend (anything from a beaded bracelet to an ornament to a drawing!)
• Donate a few books to the library.
• Set aside food to donate to the food bank (with mom or dad’s help).
• Cook (or help cook, depending on age) dinner for the family.

Random Acts of Christmas Kindness Ideas for Adults

If you’re an adult looking to do some of these random acts of Christmas kindness on your own, here are a few more ideas:

• Donate food (or money) to a food bank.
• Leave an extra big tip at a restaurant or coffee shop.
• Knit a scarf for someone who is homeless or in a shelter.
• Do a major purge and donate all the items that are in good shape
• Adopt a child to buy gifts for at Christmas.
• Pay for the person behind you at the coffee shop.
• Buy a few scratch off lottery tickets and place them on random windshields at the grocery store. (One of my favorites!)
• Set a box outside the house with drinks and pre-packaged snacks for the mailman, UPS guy, and FedEx guy.  With all the packages they deliver throughout December, they’ll appreciate the small token of gratitude.
• Donate blood.
• Do you have small businesses that you frequently visit?  Leave them a great review on Facebook or Yelp.
• Tape candy canes and happy notes in random places.
• Send a surprise present in the mail to someone who wasn’t expecting it.
• Make a freezer meal dinner for a new mom or a stressed out friend.
• Ask to speak to a manager at a restaurant or store – and give a giant compliment about the store and/or one of the employees.  So often people only speak to a manager to complain, so going out of your way to compliment the store or employees is unexpected and awesome.

2022 Printable Random Acts of Christmas Kindness Calendar

I’ve included the family-friendly printable calendar for 2022 below – just click here to access the PDF that you can download or print!

Here is also a blank version of the calendar!  This way if you are making one for yourself as an adult, or if you want to add others to your family’s calendar, you can customize it with what you want to write in. Access the PDF that you can download or print!

If you’d prefer to keep things more random, rather than scheduled, you can try:

• Writing random acts of Christmas kindness on a piece of paper and placing them in a traditional advent calendar, so your child is surprised by the task each morning when they open it up.
• Write the random acts of Christmas kindness on popsicle sticks, and draw one each day to do.

I hope this helps you connect with the season more this year!  🙂  Please go ahead and pin this on Pinterest to save it for later.

Share with me:  Do you have any other great ideas for random acts of Christmas kindness?  Have you ever tried doing a kindness advent calendar with your kids?  Do you think your family would be into this?

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