Christmas is a great time of year, spent with loved ones and appreciating everything and everyone. But some
aren’t so lucky. Do you have a weekend where you don’t have any plans? Or some spare tinned food you know you
won’t eat? Here I’ve found 18 way you can help this Christmas, small or big it will make a difference to someone.
1. Deliver food to a business working Christmas day.

2. Recruit several families and adopt a nursing home. Buy a simple gift for each resident (lotion, slippers,
holiday throw blankets, etc) and arrange a time to deliver the gifts.

3. Send Christmas cards to military personnel overseas.

4. Prepare a meal together as a family and take it to a sick or elderly friend.

5. Deliver a baked good to your neighbours.

6. Leave a Christmas card (and perhaps a little treat) in your mailbox for the mail carrier.

7. Go carolling at a nursing home.

8. Volunteer to read a Christmas book aloud to your child’s class … or contact your local bookstore to see if
you can schedule a time to read aloud to their children’s section. If possible, choose a book about the real
meaning of Christmas.

9. Ring bells for the Salvation Army.

10. Host a packing party for Operation Christmas Child, a ministry through Samaritan’s Purse that sends a
shoebox of gifts/personal items to a child in a Third World country for Christmas—which is often the only
gift the child will receive.

11. Clean out your coat closet and take your old coats to a local shelter.

12. Set the timer for 10 minutes. Have each person in your house go through their books and choose a few to
donate to your local library (or elsewhere).

13. leave food shopping on someone’s doorstep (who wouldn’t love opening their door to this surprise?)

14. shovel a neighbour’s driveway or rake their leaves

15. pay for a stranger’s dinner at a restaurant

16. leave a goodie basket on someone’s door

17. leave a kind note