Kindness Elves

Although I can't remember where I heard about Kindness Elves, I knew it was something I wanted to check out. They come to visit and give ideas for something kind to do each day. They come in a little house with a mailbox where they write a postcard each night to be discovered the next morning. Kind of like Elf on the Shelf but without the guilt.

While I had a whole plan about blogging about each week with long stories of what we did each day, we got stalled by one thing- what happens when you don't complete the challenge each day?

Now that makes it sound like we don't practice kindness around here, or that we don't care to try. We easily completed all of the challenges except ones that had a few steps like crafting and then doing something with the craft. I hope this is something that will be easier next year. 

What happens at our house is that the elves don't come visit again until you've completed the challenge. Because Mom forgot to give a new challenge one night, and we hadn't fully completed the challenge the day before. 

Honestly, I don't remember what the first few challenges were, but the first one that held us back was hiding a happy rock for someone to find. We got it decorated, but didn't hide it until a few days later. Then we did a couple more challenges, including saying a BIG Thank You to the checkout person at the store, inviting a lonely kid to play at school, and donating to the food pantry.

We are currently held up on the challenge of making a bookmark and hiding it in a book at the library. I'm not sure Abby understands or cares what a bookmark is and that's why we haven't made it or put it in a book.

My plan was to have the Kindness Elves stay through Valentine's Day, but we may extend it one more challenge and then say goodbye until next year. I'm glad to do this in February when there is less going on than around the holidays in December. It's been a nice introduction and fun to see Abby so excited about the note and encouraged to do kind things all the time. I noticed her trying to give compliments and give toys to her sister more often, which is really sweet! Looking forward to more Kindness Elves next year.