Posted on 12/31/2009 12:42:21 PM PST by Gillmeister
Our family has a new tradition.
When we started last January, they were hesitant to save their change, and gave me some grief about it, but by April they had forgotten about what they wanted, and I kept stressing the importance of people who might need this extra money so their kids Christmas would be fun.
Sorry for the indulgence, but wanted to share my family's new "tradition"
What did you put into the jars?
Christmas Jars in which to put spare change in during the year, then put them anonomously on porches Christmas Eve.
At least, that’s my take on them.
Excellent training for when they graduate to the flaming bag of dog poop level.
Nice idea, but I’m not sure if I would do it in a random fashion. I know many porches where one would do this & the money would be spent on gambling, liquor, cigarettes or drugs - to the detriment of any children living there.
I see lots of people during the course of my daily activities - the girl that works the early morning shift at McDonalds, the single mother in one of my classes, another single mother that works at a local nursing home - lots of people that I feel would use that money on their families.
Still, it’s a great idea that I might adopt this year!
I’ve heard about this before... but when you light the jars on fire and they come out of the home in a hurry to try to stomp them out, don’t they get hurt from the glass???
Did ya stick around to make sure the Hooligans didn’t swipe them?
I find it a better idea to go and get an “angel” off a Salvation Army Christmas Tree and buy the gifts directly. Our church has recently started inviting all the angels to a dinner where the gifts are given out to the kids afterward. We just got the kid a $100 gift certificate at Wal-Mart.
We did this a couple years ago for a family we knew of through church who was having a hard time. We buried a couple $20 bills and a McDonald’s gift card in the middle of all the change.
It was fun being sneaky about it and we involved our teens, whom they wouldn’t recognize, in the undercover operation. We parked around the corner and had them leave the jar, ring the bell and run! We skipped the part about lighting it on fire, LOL!
It was very gratifying and I think I’ll start saving my change again this year.
When we did this, we left the jar two days before Christmas so the parent would have time to go shopping for the kids before Christmas morning. Imagine Christmas morning with precious little under the tree, not enough for a nice dinner, but a jar full of change you can’t spend except at the 7-11.
That was a very nice tradition to start, especially with young children. When you train your child to think of others, it will become a life time trait.
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