This Year, I am Sprinkling Christmas With Extra Kindness
Because the world needs more of it than ever
I don’t know about you, but Christmas cheer feels a little flat where I come from.
All the families that we typically associate with through school activities, lift-shares and social activities are getting sick, with at least one member of the family testing positive for Covid.
We had to cancel my son’s birthday sleepover (well, hopefully, just postpone). He was pretty gutted and shed a few tears.
My daughter’s friend’s dad’s birthday is on Christmas Day but he can’t spend it with their wider family, as they usually do.
Yet again, many older people are eating their Christmas dinners alone…for the second year running.
And, as ever, there are people dependent upon food parcels to feed their families. This year, food banks are expecting to give out more than 7,000 during the month of December.
Somehow, even last year felt more cheerful and hopeful than this year. I think it’s the realisation that we are a year on and we didn’t anticipate being here still. The hopes that we had for a ‘normal’ Christmas have been dashed.
So, I decided I needed to put something more beautiful and positive into the world. I may only be one small person, but every bit of light counts, right?
Cue…
The Twelve Days of Kindness.
Beginning on Christmas Day, and for the following twelve days, I will be writing something to express and give kindness into the world. That may be lifting a fellow writer, or it may be a story about a kind act.
As yet, what I will write is unknown; I leave it in the hands of spontaneous inspiration.
Pledging to do something that can make an impact, no matter how small, feels like the least I can offer as a writer, and I invite you to join me.
I shall be using the tag # Twelve Days Of Kindness, and so feel free to join in and use that tag so that I can see your posts too.
In addition…
I will be donating the income earned by the reads of all of my # Twelve Days Of Kindness posts to The Trussell Trust. You can read all about the great work that they do here:
The work they do is incredible and, while I could donate food, it’s much more impactful to donate money since they have the resources to make every penny go much further.
I will also be linking my Buy Me A Coffee account so that, should you want to, you can donate a coffee’s-worth of money to the cause. Please write “Food Bank Donation” in the reference if you do, so that I know that you have donated and can acknowledge and thank you for it.
All will be shared in screenshots to provide evidence that the money is being paid on to The Trussell Trust.
So, look out for my Twelve Days of Christmas series and I look forward to reading those of anyone who joins me. Will you?
If you would like to make a donation through my Coffee account to help to feed those in need, you can do so here.
And now, for some visual beauty, I would like to share this incredible selection of photographs by David Bryson:
And another little piece of kindness from me:
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