Family Christmas Service Opportunities

This year our family started a new Christmas tradition geared toward serving to keep the spirit of Christmas alive and center. It's really important to me that my girls know that Christmas isn't just about getting presents, it's all about giving just as Christ did and still continues to do for each of us. As a family we picked out a few acts of service we wanted to do together to celebrate Christmas and honor our Savior.

Our first service that we chose was to bring Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and a gallon of Chocolate Milk to the Firefighters at the Murray Fire Station to thank them for all of their hard work serving our community and for keeping us safe. We all had a blast with this one and the Firefighters were really appreciative! Especially since they had only gotten 2 hours of sleep that night due to freezing rain and many calls that night!

( I forgot to take a picture of the girls holding the doughnuts and chocolate milk that we brought so I posted some clip art pics instead).

John took a group photo of the girls and I with our friendly firemen. They were incredibly nice and great with our girls! And they answered all of the questions that John and I had as well.

Bree got to sit in the driver's seat of the fire engine, she was so thrilled about that!

Mallory joined her sister and Bree found a pair of their sunglasses to wear. (Bree always puts sunglasses on upside down, silly girl).

They even turned on the lights for them.

Bree tried on one of their helmets.

And took a few turns sliding down the fireman's pole.
Mallory was being shy and didn't want to give it a try.




Our second act of service was to donate some supplies to the Humane Society.
 I had called them up and asked them what they were in need of the most and they said food, warm blankets and kitty litter.  So we then took a trip to the grocery store to have the girls help pick out some cat and dog food, and kitty litter to buy and take to our local Humane Society. (I have a really soft spot for animals and I don't think that they should be forgotten on Christmas)!

 Here we are with some of our goodies to drop off for the kitty cats and puppy dogs.

 The girls are donating an extra blanket we had around and didn't use.

We spent some time playing with the cats.

The girls especially had fun playing with this cat.

Here they are checking out this little dog.

This service opportuntiy couldn't have come at a better time for me especially because I was getting so burned out from working full time and overtime. I wanted Christmas to just come and go already and I was mad at myself for thinking that. Yes I have over extended myself, but what I really wanted was to really truly reflect on Christmas and the true meaning of it. Had it not been for these acts of service that we did together as a family I would probably still be in a sour mood about Christmas. I can't really even describe the feelings of joy and love that came from these simple acts of service. It truly brought us together as a family which is the best gift of all!